Poetry in Motion
by Sylv1aPlath
Summary: A chance meeting on a cold night in 1958 turns two women's lives upside down.
1. Chapter 1

Poetry in Motion

 _ **Disclaimer:**_ I do not own _Call the Midwife_ , or any of the characters mentioned. All rights belong to BBC One, PBS, Heidi Thomas and Jennifer Worth. I do not own rights to ' _Poetry in Motion_ ' or any such published works of music, art and film mentioned in the story.

 **For entertainment purposes only.**

Chapter 1

 _Poplar, 1958_

There was something to be said about night-time in Poplar. It was not Poplar. So hush and unflustered, it teetered masterfully in between the _Wild West_ and a proper ghost-town. Where under the brilliant sun, snotty little buggers tossed punctured footballs across byways and motor vehicles honked until women screeched out their windows for them to stop – the jammed little patch in East London spun fast, frantic and surely around agendas of burly dockworkers and stealthy pickpockets, of tardy milkmen and even tardier monthly visitors.

At half past eleven on a weeknight however, the whirling was no more.

It halted.

A portion of Earth flung into space and caught in inertia sans gravity. Hovering, yet heavy, Poplar stood still. Fog sunk low and sprinkled London with dark magic.

A streetlamp or two, flickering just, hinted the young midwife's path back to the convent.

She tugged at the lapel of her coat, fastening her pace as she scurried through a fine maze of dirty brick row houses. Coarse threads of dry wool and something else worked into Patsy Mount's thumb and she would have winced, muttered something under her breath she would never mutter at Nonnatus, she would have if invisible blades of ice hadn't been attempting to scissor through her dark duffel coat.

Any opportunity to feel the sputter of amniotic fluid bucketing over her hands was one she would trade for nothing. The sharp cries followed by wondrous smiles. The capability to contort a body so a living, breathing thing could crawl out and thrive. She treasured her job. Yet, love for midwifery did not surprise her. She was at her calmest in a storm, always had been. Sure, getting the hang of formalities and pleasantries and of fretting mothers had been tricky, but she had done well.

What was surprising, however, was that she found herself walking a step faster not because the roads were a deserted, or because Poplar was not the safest place for a lady after nightfall, nor because she had birthed four babies that day – two breech – and was positively _exhausted._ Rather because she knew Sister Julienne would be leading the nuns into compline. She knew Trixie would be filing her nails, lingering around the dancette, a peg of Advocaat ready with the latest serving of gossip. She walked faster because she didn't want to wake Sister Monica Joan if she got in too late – all those certainties in that toasty little nunnery seemed much too charming, and much too safe a prospect to miss out on.

Nurse Mount was getting attached.

She shook the thought away, her breath coming out in thick white vapour as she hassled.

"Bloody hell…" she growled when she tripped, a heel getting caught in a crack on the pavement; she regained her balance. Where were proper shoes when she needed them?

" _Oh Patsy, don't be such a ninny. You can't possibly wear those ghastly clogs to see a man like Godfrey Black!" Trixie had dug through her cupboard, sighed happily and yanked something out, "Perfect. A tad snug but they'll do."_

Patsy recalled the conversation she'd had with Trixie earlier in the evening and gritted her jaw.

Before it could formulate, the thought was replaced with vigilance and her ears perked up. Round eyes darted to the left. Scuttling; it sounded like metal dustbins scraping about. Inadvertently, pale legs slowed and pupils contracted. It was a rat. Fat and hairy. This time she did flinch.

District practice will wring out any squeamishness of roaches or pests out of you, but it was late and Patsy had stood up a gentleman and was feeling off and portly rats reminded her of a time much bleaker, much farther back and farther away than the malodorous communal lavatories of East London.

Then as though it knew of its influence, the well-fed vermin dashed in her direction and she gasped and her heel did something or the other and so did her ankle and then her right hand was cupping the smooth, cool roundness of a cobblestone and her knee fighting against something hard and her other hand against something utterly soft and warm.

"Oh gosh –"she jumped to her feet, grabbing at what that felt like a forearm and hauling the figure up with her, "Heavens – are you alright?"

"Am I alright?" The woman said, not in earnest; she was brushing at her front with a purse, "I don't know about you but I find it helps to keep my eyes open when I walk!"

Patsy was stunned, she had never been the clumsy sort. Quite the opposite in fact. She had aced every posture exam in Boarding School so even the staunchest of nuns could find no flaw.

Just this moment, her education seemed to have escaped her. Half thinking about where the rat had gone and half about the incensed shapely woman she had rammed into, she struggled to steady herself on a pair of Trixie's pumps too small. She felt like a bumbling idiot.

"I'm – I am sorry. I could – I –" Patsy was having trouble collecting her thoughts; she realized she hadn't eaten since lunchtime, "- I apologize"

By the time she got the words out, Patsy noticed the woman had finished tending to her Chesterfield coat and was looking up at her intently.

Patsy breathed out slowly, with all fingers and toes trying to gather her scurrying composure. It was an accident. She breathed. _Its O.K._ Accidents happen.

"A rat" she said finally.

 _You utter fool._

Bright eyes widened somewhat, scanned the area.

"Minced pies are a delicacy among night crawlers in Poplar I suppose" Patsy said, attempting to bring levity to the situation.

"Well?" the woman stared, challenging.

The midwife was beginning to get vexed now.

" _Well_ …?" Patsy stiffened, "With all due your respect – "she tucked back a rogue lock of hair that had fallen out of her beehive; she felt her natural self-assurance returning slightly, "– I believe I've conveyed to you how absolutely regretful I am for my absentminded civic sense. However, I hardly ran you into the ground with a motorcar" exasperated eyes traced the length of the smaller woman, "Now if you've got damages I am most willing to pay medical bills, but as you seem quite alright you might spare me a moment of understanding. As I recall, I'm hardly the only scatter-brained pedestrian on this footpath."

Dark eyebrows hiked up, surprised by the outburst. The young woman opened her mouth and closed it again and Patsy watched carefully. As though it was going to come bite her. She swallowed at the thought.

"Well – "the brunette cleared her throat, "- well I don't like rats."

"I say, you'd be the first one" Patsy said, exaggerating her shock.

"I don't like rats miss and should I see one in this very moment I'd quite like to run. To do that, I'm afraid I'm going to need my right hand back" the woman retorted, not missing a beat.

Patsy broke eye-contact and looked down. The night-air was brisk and nippy but she was scorching red under her collar. She dropped the woman's gloved hand like a dead fish.

"Right" Patsy mumbled, taking a step back to create some distance.

The once irate woman was now watching Patsy keenly, a bemused smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. She hadn't expected the redhead with the cut-glass accent to submit so easily. Had the taller woman not been standing so straight and rigid, she would have felt bad for her, but so it happened the brunette's bus from Pembrokeshire had been delayed and trekking down High Street Blackwell with two handbags in this city at this time of night was hardly a cake-walk. Londoners were quite toffee-nosed when it came to non-Londoners she had noted. Typically, she liked to believe she was patient and understanding of such prejudice – after all, most people came around as time went on, and it wasn't as though people back in her village were always welcoming of outsiders. Tonight however, she would suffer no snobbish charade of class.

"Delia Busby" the Welsh woman offered a hand.

Patsy took it without thought, cringing at her own awkwardness as she shook lifelessly.

"Shall I call you the rat-lady?"

"What?" the redhead blinked, registering her sing-song lilt for the first time. She withdrew her hand.

 _Delia_ , had laughed out loud this time.

"You've got a peculiar way of apologizing, I must say" the midwife said, smoothing a fold on her sleeve.

"Oh?" Delia looked genuinely stunned at the woman's apparent entitlement "That's quite right too –" glinting eyes took in the length of the redhead, " – because it was far from my intention" 

"Humility?" Patsy shot back.

"Barbarity"

"Barbarity?"

"The Romans packed opponents head-first with much less power than with which I was struck down, did you know that?" Delia said.

"Just don't tell me you're equating yourself with Caratacus, _Delia_?" Patsy sobered.

Noting mild distraction on the woman's face at the use of her name.

"Only if you're equating yourself with Hosidius –?" the brunette let the sentence suspend in air, waiting for the taller woman to fill in the blank with her name.

Patsy found herself in search of syllables, taken aback with the woman's knowledge of Britain's river battles with Romans.

"You're not going to make me ask again, are you?" Delia deflated, the spark of mirth replaced by something softer now.

Both women turned to the street when they heard the engine of a motorcar pass by. The stream of headlights cut through layers of smog and rained over them for a few moments before darkness.

Patsy swallowed. Delia was very pretty.

She matched her expecting look.

"Patience" the redhead offered.

"That's quite well but I've not got all night"

This time, Patsy didn't mask her grin, letting it split her face in half.

"What? Go on"

"Everyone calls me Patsy, but my name is Patience. Patience Mount" she said, pushing her fringe out of her eyes.

Delia chuckled, wrapping her arms around herself as an especially frosty draft draped around them.

"I'm the git now"

"So you admit it" Patsy curved an eyebrow.

Delia opened her mouth in mock-shock, adjusting her scarf as she looked straight at Patsy, "You're one to talk! Not the most graceful ballerina knocking innocent bystanders to the ground and scaring them off in the middle of the night?"

"I'm perfectly graceful, thank you very much" Patsy folded her arms across her chest, "One can hardly be expected to foresee an immovable object in the dead of night with hungry rats scurrying about, can they?"

"One can hardly be expected to foresee anything at any time of day or night if one is an unstoppable force" Delia smirked.

"I'm not sure whether to be flattered or insulted"

"That's for you to decide Patsy _…_ " Delia said; she pursed her lips suddenly, her shoulders squaring, "I - Patience – I'm sorry if that was too familiar."

"Oh - I detest _Patience_. Only my father calls me that –" the redhead shook her head, surprised by the Welsh woman's sudden hesitancy. Even more surprised by her own willingness to talk about her father.

The break in conversation went far to make Patsy conscious of what she was doing. She had to stop. She knew nothing about this woman. It was bad enough she had pummelled her to the ground she didn't want to make her uncomfortable. She had to control herself.

"Well…" Delia's features relaxed at the words, a shy smile returning to her mouth "I wouldn't want to call you anything _detestable_ , then."

Patsy shuffled on her feet to keep warm, "Quite."

Another gale of London winter slithered across India Docks and along the corner of Manor Road and the redhead had to blink to look away from Delia's vibrant blue inspection.

"Right then –" Patsy buttoned an already fastened coat, she stepped away and then back and then away again " – I better get going."

The Welsh woman glanced at her wrist and looked up with her mouth open.

"You've taken up quite some of my time Patsy Mount!"

Patsy laughed in pretend offense, gaze trained on the brunette as they began moving in opposite directions, "It takes two to tango Delia Busby"

"Oh go on. Remember, spare us poor streetwalkers and don't go dashing into anyone else as you tango" Delia called, moving backward.

For the first time since she'd met her, the young midwife noticed two suitcases in Delia's hands. _Was she going somewhere?_

Never mind.

She thought it best if she never met her again anyway. She watched as the brunette turned around and walked away.

"I am the picture of a dancer Delia; I assure you I won't ram into anybody without help!" Patsy answered.

The brunette spun back, half way down the cobblestoned path when Patsy realized she had been watching Delia's back for Lord knows how long. The crisp air contested with strands of dark brown hair and she stared at Patsy with a beam too bright for the night.

"That you are Patsy. Perfect poetry in motion…" she yelled back.

With that, the fog swallowed her and nothing was left but the downiest hint of perfume.

The midwife turned around and paced back. She had trouble breathing for her heart was beating faster than usual.

#

 **A.N.:** Thank you so much for having taken the time to read this story! It's my first one, and I was not born in the 50s' so please pardon the inconsistencies in my linguistic usage. I'll try and fix it in the future, if I go on with this piece.

Did you enjoy it? Do let me know!


	2. Chapter 2

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own _Call the Midwife_ , or any of the characters mentioned. All rights belong to BBC One, PBS, Heidi Thomas and Jennifer Worth. I do not own rights to ' _Poetry in Motion_ ' or any such published works of music, art and film mentioned in the story.

 **For entertainment purposes only.**

* * *

Chapter 2

 _Poplar, 1960_

Pervasive and blue the elderly Sister's eyes followed keenly, from where they were peering under a wimple resting on the back of a timeworn leather armchair across the drawing-room, the actions of a certain redhead as she trotted about the open-pantry. Her breathing, measured and slow, was unlikely to be recognised by any suspicious watchers. For all intents and purposes, she was gone; on a journey long and far on another plane full of fields of marigold.

Nurse Franklin, quietly, strolled into the scene and the nun fell even more still. The young blonde was a bloodhound. Only resident of Nonnatus more inescapable was perhaps Evangelina, but her footsteps were imprinted on every lobe of the senescent Sister's brain – trained to roll and duck like a cat on the prowl in event of provocation. The painted Nurse eyed her and whispered something to Nurse Mount who glanced back. In one swift motion, the tall girl rose two feet above her height, flung open the top cupboard, yanked out a flat, round lilac tin. She held it close to her chest. Both young midwifes turned to glance at the unconscious nun, pursed their lips as though to keep from laughing and ran off.

Monica Joan listened carefully to the sound of tatty heels against steps – scampering and fast like anxious knocks on the door back when she used to answer anxious knocks on the door.

Once the door above clicked shut, she allowed herself to let go of a held breath. A sly smile spread evenly on her wrinkled mouth. All she had to do now was wait until the music stopped. Then they'd put it back – the Flies' Graveyard.

"If she's awake or not I can never tell, her eyelids droop so low"

"Trixie!" Barbara gasped, taking the tin from the redhead's arms.

"What?" the peroxide-blonde threw back a careless glance, tips of slender fingers rifling through stacks of records.

"That's hardly respectful. She is the most experienced midwife in all of Nonnatus."

"Yes," Trixie slipped the needle into a Paul Anka vinyl and stood to her height, filling the room with a radio-wave harmonium sort of sound, "And I had five deliveries this Tuesday – I'm telling you it's these long dark winters," she glanced at a smirking Patsy, fastening the tie across her silk night-robe "– three babies dogged as Khrushchev. The panicking mothers absolutely uncooperative – one of whom was Ruth Harley might I add. On Bromley, remember? The one who breaks into hives at the slightest hint of unease. So there I am, coaxing the poor girl to get on all fours as she hollers louder than her little boy outside the bedroom door and then turns into an absolute lobster right before my eyes!"

She plopped down on her bed with a dramatic huff, rising to cradle a glass of something murky and purple from Patsy's hands.

"What on Earth –"

"Gin and Blackberry liqueur–" the redhead said, "Jerry Prichard, the dockworker with that ghastly open fracture? His brother's got an orchard and tis' the season apparently."

Trixie eyed the drink apprehensively before dipping her top lip into it like it was cod liver oil. Then, deciding she rather didn't mind the taste, went in for a proper sip. Patsy handed Barbara a cream-soda with a lemon-wedge, who was listening intently.

"Anyhow, as I was saying – after my absolutely atrocious day, I get home no earlier than midnight, am on call again in less than four hours and there isn't anything to pair with the scones. I had to settle on Bournvita and Marie biscuits," she crossed a leg across her knee, "This is the third missing jar of jam Violet's sent over in a fortnight, by the way."

"Hear that Barbara?" Patsy let a cigarette hang from the corner of her mouth, adjusting next to the mousy brunette, drink in hand, "Trixie – the raspberry jam martyr."

"It was strawberry" the blonde smiled into her small hurricane glass.

The three women fell into a comfortable silence, dissolving into a cloud of tobacco and fumes of alcohol; letting go of the accumulated tiredness of the week as they sunk into pillows behind them, letting the hollowed harmony of Anka hypnotize them into submission. Finally, Trixie cracked open the faded biscuit tin and three pairs of eyes lit up at the sight. A crumbling slab of freshly iced fruit squares was fitted tight into the container like wafers in Kit-Kat. Bits of red and cooked currants oozed from within the irregular cuts, trickling out the edges like a sweet jammy grid carved into soft cream-sponge.

"Mm…" Barbara popped a generous piece of the contraband square into her mouth, "I don't think I'll ever know how Mrs. B does it."

"Quite," Patsy took a final drag out of a Clove ciggie and tossed the packet of Dunhills to the side-table, "On rough days, I still dream of that pineapple-upside-down from Fred's birthday last year."

She stubbed out the smouldering butt and lay on her front, resting on her forearms as she examined the vibrant creation.

Within minutes all three women had contorted their bodies so they could be as close to the cake as possible. Trixie on her bed, heels bobbing mid-air as fingers picked at raisins.

"Suppose someone asked where half of the flies' graveyard's disappeared to?" Patsy's teeth grazed across her bottom lip, tongue peeking out to get frosted sugar off her thumb.

"Sister Evangelina's going to hold Sister Monica Joan accountable either way –still –" Barbara rolled over and lay on her back, "Nurse Crane knows I'm with you both."

"Speaking of Nurse Crane," Trixie topped up her glass with Bombay Sapphire, "Who's going with her to the London tomorrow to get your appointed charge?"

"That would be me" Patsy said.

"Oh really?" Barbara looked up at the redhead, "I was afraid it'd be me. I don't know what it is – but it's quite the responsibility – holding someone's career in your hands like that."

"A nuisance more like. Whatever are you going to do with her Patsy?" Trixie said, sauntering back to her place at the bed.

"What is there to do with her?" the redhead sighed, lighting another menthol, "Suppose I'm going to pray to the heavens that I get someone Matron shaped right and knows her bedpans from her emesis basins and her I.V.'s from her three by four blunt points."

Trixie rolled her eyes, fearing for her overachieving friend's charge.

"Show off" Barbara said, diffident eyebrows arching up to her hairline as her lips turned downward, "I still have trouble distinguishing between the three-by-fours and the two-by-two canoes."

"Side-effects of Male Surgical I'm afraid" the redhead shrugged earnestly.

"At the risk of sounding selfish, I'm glad you're going before me. I'd rather like to know what to expect. I'm on the roster for a trainee starting first week of next month" Trixie said.

"Why is Sister Julienne loaning us to the London anyhow? We're short two midwives as it is since Cynth – Sister Mary Cynthia's been at the Mother House and Sister Evangelina won't be back from her surgery until next week" Barbara said, uncomfortable talking about authority behind their backs.

"Something about fulfilling a recruitment quota," Patsy said, "Sister Jesu Emmanuel seems to be hoping that one of these innocent, budding puff-sleeved girls will want to join Nonnatus."

"On what? District?"

"Why not midwifery? They've got Maternity at the London" Barbara looked at Trixie.

"Not the sort of Maternity I'd ever refer one of my mothers to. I'm afraid the London is rather a meat-locker with all those pig-headed doctors ruling the place like its Buckingham and they are all the Duke of Edinburgh," Patsy said disdainfully, remembering the number of times she had wanted to fling her resignation papers at more than her share of egomaniacal surgeons barking at nurses like they were personal slaves.

"Oh, I'm yet to be seconded to the London. Surely not all doctors are that way Patsy" the small brunette said, more pleading than stating.

"Not that one – Remember Patsy?" Trixie grinned at the redhead, walking toward the record-player, "What was his name? Roger, or Reginald? The one with the widow's peak and high cheekbones? He was melting to look at…"

Patsy held still. She didn't like these moments. Suddenly, with great interest in the crumbs that had appeared out of nowhere on her bedsheet, she began brushing them off, tucking in the corners of an already made bed.

Trixie glanced at her once more, but did not push. After four years of having lived with the enigmatic redhead, she was well-acquainted with 'Aloof Patsy.' Initially appearing to be reserved for the most part, bristly upon the slightest provocation, Trixie had gotten to know more than a couple sides of her roommate. Midwifery – as joyous and blissful as it can be, could plummet just as suddenly to black, with a stillbirth or a birth-defect. Patsy had been on her side steadfastly, not only through grim deliveries but also through breakups and bad dates. She never really had had that sort of camaraderie with Jenny, although she missed her dearly. In fact, Trixie got along with Patsy better than she did with most girls. Perhaps it was because they had very different taste in men and that sort of competition just never seemed to exist. Or because they were both ambitious, both perfectionists, eager to be the best and no less, and unapologetic about it

Patsy had immense propensity to be cold, but she could also be immeasurably loving, compassionate in her own way and she made for the best drinking partner. If nothing else, they shared what they needed to and stopped asking questions when the time came – knowing each other's limitations almost telepathically.

All things considered, Trixie surmised that a bit of spontaneous detachment was worth all the good. She wouldn't trade Patsy in for anything, not even Cliff Richards. Perhaps, Rock.

"What is it?" Barbara asked, sitting up.

Trixie looked from where she had been filing her nails. She followed curious brown eyes to where they were focused on a frozen Patsy.

"Patsy?" the blonde leaned forward, looking in between the entranced woman and a concerned Barbara.

"What song is this?" she said, turning suddenly to face the manicured midwife.

Trixie didn't know whether to burst into laughter or be worried; Patsy's eyes were round and glassy and she looked like a child having gotten her most desired present on Christmas morning – a ghost.

Trixie settled on a bemused chuckle.

"What's gotten into you?" Barbara extended an arm to nudge the bewildered redhead but thought better of it.

"It's Johnny Tillotson" Trixie said finally, "Poetry in Motion."

The words seemed to knock her out of her reverie like a hot slap. Patsy swallowed, embarrassed suddenly by her own behaviour. She looked at her friends, both staring at her dumbfounded – one anxious and the other tickled.

"G-gosh," she got up, blinking, she cleared her throat "must be all that blackberry liqueur."

"Must be" Trixie echoed.

"Early morning. Best get ready for bed" Patsy mumbled uncharacteristically as she left the room.

Smoking and slippery, the melodious fingers of Trixie's dancette followed her, slithering to wrap their spellbinding grasp around her pale ankles.

Patsy hadn't thought of that night in quite some time. That cold, foggy, phantasmal night two years ago. That fiery, insolent, phantasmal woman two years ago. Whenever her mind stumbled upon that memory, one filed away for special occasions, she had wondered if it had been some sort of a terribly realistic dream. If she had fallen, hit her head and conjured up this intricate subconscious figment of imagination.

If it weren't for the fact that if she closed her eyes tight enough, if she drank enough and was in a specific sort of a mood – she could swear she felt that small hand in her palms. The lines of it through the fabric of her glove. She could smell the faint hint of new grass and raw vanilla suspended in thick mist. If it weren't for all those things, Patsy would be convinced it was in fact a hallucination.

Patsy chalked up to the recollection to the slight buzz she had worked up over the last few hours. Anything else would just be silly.

"Goodness…" she shook her head as she shut the bathroom door behind her. Two long fingers pinched the bridge of her nose.

Tomorrow was critical, she could _not_ afford to be hungover.

* * *

 **A/N** : Thank you so much for those lovely remarks! What do you think of this one, if you all are still around that is?

Liked it, disliked it? Let me have it.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own _Call the Midwife_ , or any of the characters mentioned. All rights belong to BBC One, PBS, Heidi Thomas and Jennifer Worth. I do not own rights to ' _Poetry in Motion_ ' or any such published works of music, art and film mentioned in the story.

 **For entertainment purposes only.**

Chapter 3

"There are two things, blodyn tatws, two things one must respect regardless of what may be. Whether it's the heavens pouring down like a broken argae or the ground below you splitting in half – that's money and time cyw. Learn that much and you're set for life," with that, the short ruddy man kissed his daughter on the forehead and set her free.

She stuck a final kirby grip into her bun knelt down to pull on a fresh pair of white stockings – mind's eye trained on the wall-clock.

Today was not singular in her reminiscence, Delia Busby thought of those mornings often. The way her father's brawny arms wrapped around her before he went to the shop. His good white shirt, starched and ironed. The smell of lime and hot cotton on his collar. Even at 13, she remembered thinking she would never again feel the sort of security she felt in the closed circle of those large arms for a few minutes before school every morning; not until she got married, of course. Then it would be the same again, better even, that's what everyone said.

She'd first gone steady with Marc Blethen when she was sixteen. Doe-eyed and grinning ear to ear she had threaded her arm through his and waltzed out the door with her mother's watery valediction and her father's scowling puffs of cigar and to her junior prom. They had danced and drank Stone Ginger-Beer and even had a kiss on the cheek behind the crooked Ash in Marc's father's backyard.

Even as they stood there, his palms sweating, shaking on the small of Delia's back and his eyes, grasshopper green, and blown up looking into hers – all she could do was focus on a small blue Kingfisher sat atop them. In the way of mistletoe but not, because Delia was more entranced by the neon orange freckles on the bird's feathers than she was by the moony-eyed boy making his nervy journey toward her.

He was not her husband.

A whole year later, there had been Derec Cardiff and every girl in Pembrokeshire was jealous. He was tall, dark, had much clearer skin than Marc and had cheekbones cut like a film-star. Like James Dean, her cousin Catrin had said when he came over for Christmas dinner. Delia was convinced it ran in the Cardiff blood because his older sister had been stunning; Delia could hardly take her eyes off of her. Everyone went on about Derec but she was more beautiful than him, more interesting and an absolutely role-model to the teenaged brunette. Derec was a better kisser than Marc, Delia noted. Although her mother had preferred Marc, "I don't trust that wily smirk he gives you cariad," she used to say. Delia never did care. He had hugged her and then done more, and she knew straight away he was not her husband. He reeked of cheap ale and slid a hand into her blouse.

She had stepped on his toes and taken a bath afterward.

It seemed awfully silly now, so juvenile she would never say it out loud, but over the years, Delia had made it a sort of quiet marker of criteria - an exam of sorts, to decide who she would marry. If she felt safe in their arms.

The idea had been embarrassing and puerile for two reasons. One, because even today, at 23, it had never happened that she met a man who held her and made her feel like she belonged there. The other, more important reason – one she doubted anybody in her life would understand if she screamed it off of rooftops until her lungs gave out – was that this notion of marriage as a goal was utterly depressing to her. For, what did it mean to say you think of a man as only a husband or a father? It meant you as a woman are nothing more than a wife or a daughter – both roles serving no respectable vocation in practical life. Delia felt ashamed to the brink of nausea thinking about it, but alas she was done with graduate school and her mother's insistence had grown unbearable. Every birthday and anniversary they held at the cottage consisted of a relative pinching her cheeks, "Oh, Delia annwyl, you look like one of those pretty dolls at Hamleys. Who's the lucky lad going to be?"

Every time, it had ended in screaming matches and tears with her mother over who she would marry until finally she had met a half-English, half-Scot businessmen on her train back from London.

Hugh William Fraser was not the love of her life, but what he lacked in ways of being her soulmate – he made up for in prospects. Delia had played a game of Gin Rummy with him on the train; exhausted and mildly depressed to be leaving the city of her dreams. The city that could have been her escape from the everyday drudgery of conformity, of carved out roles and of a village where everybody knew each other.

Ironically, her panacea to being tied to a man had been being tied to a man.

Hugh was to be taking over the management of a textile-factory in Poplar, East London. While they didn't talk very much – there never seemed much excitement to discuss – he had made it practice to visit her every weekend, a fresh bouquet in hand. Her parents had swiftly warmed to the tall blond man. Thought him respectful and honourable, of good background. Her friends had trouble looking away when he entered a room. He knew when to leave her be and was never pushy. During one of her introspective-phases, Delia had discovered that she was not a touchy-feely sort of a person and Hugh had allowed only an instance or two to be exasperated by her brushing his hands away or furtively sneaking out of his grasp.

Ultimately, when he got down on one knee and proposed, there had been fewer reasons to say no than there were to say yes.

Hugh was to be at his post by end of month and so they had married quickly; held a small close-knit ceremony at her parents' parish in Southern Wales.

Truth be told, marriage or 'wedding' was not terribly exciting to Delia Busby. At least not in the way it was to the girls at school, not in the way it was to her mother or aunts. Nuptials, holy matrimony, wedlock and man-and-wife were tools merely a means to an end. The only part of a wedding she had dreamt of for a substantial amount of her youth was her dress. So she was somewhat surprised that when the time came, she felt severed from the whole process. Letting Hugh's and her own mother make most aesthetic decisions while she waited for her Nursing certificate to come through.

In November of 1958 she had visited her aunt in London for the first time since she was a fifteen.

Yes, it smelled peculiar, was made almost entirely of stone and cement and it was difficult to breathe several times of day – but Delia knew it – she would live here. The long babbling brooks and green meadows of Pembrokeshire would always be for when she wanted to go back. This, for now, would be her home. She would study here, learn here and nurse here. She would make something of herself in the bright, dazzling, smoking city that was London.

She would meet people different from ones she had been around her whole life. She would heal those who needed healing. Marriage to Hugh Fraser had allowed her that.

An honest woman of 19 days, she was back in London. In a new flat with a new job fastening a new pair of white Oxfords as tight as they would allow.

" _Time and money blodyn tatws…"_

Her father's gruff voice rang again in her ears. She popped a gypsy cream in her mouth, let a half-dressed Hugh nearly graze her lips mid-shave, checked her hair one last time, slipped on a thick coat and ran out into the frigid air of the East End.

Heady notes of star-anise lingered around her from her husband's shaving-cream and Delia shook it off like a snake out of old skin. She walked faster, breaking into a march as she glanced at her watch and suppressed a fizz of excitement. She was going to be a nurse. An actual, practicing, real-life nurse – in the London no less. The hand that did not hold her purse ran over her torso and she felt butterflies knowing a uniform clung to her body underneath. A jolt of nerves through her stomach then, she sobered.

She looked around as shabbily-dressed men ran for life behind double-deckers, brown paper parcels clutched in hands. Scrawny children laughed and mothers chastised them to stay along the footpath.

A pair of nuns across the byroad, chatting about something awfully stimulating as they walked through an underpass. One of them substantially older, being disciplined by the other Sister, of more stout stature.

Two younger women in light blue figure-hugging outfits zoomed out the same way on bicycles. Inadvertently, Delia's eyes ran up a pair of legs, hips – catching only glimpses of the tight bottom as a cape fluttered behind the blonde woman.

The brunette caught herself and forced her eyes to focus on her path forward. Poplar seemed to be perennially crowded; she wouldn't want to barrel into some poor soul again. A slow, asymmetrical smirk spread across her mouth and she swallowed. Delia's eyes raked in her surroundings as she crossed to the bus-stop.

Suppose she wouldn't mind so much, ramming into her again.

She'd have to take the number five, the instruction letter had said.

#

 **A.N.:** I'm surprised with how quickly I got this out. Now I've got a headache and my eyes are burning so I'll put my laptop away and go for a run.

I hope you all aren't too upset with me?


	4. Chapter 4

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own _Call the Midwife_ , or any of the characters mentioned. All rights belong to BBC One, PBS, Heidi Thomas and Jennifer Worth. I do not own rights to ' _Poetry in Motion_ ' or any such published works of music, art and film mentioned in the story.

 **For entertainment purposes only.**

* * *

Chapter 4

It had not read 'No. 5' on her first-day programme itinerary. It had apparently been 'No. 8' with a part of the pencil faded out. So Delia had taken the wrong bus. A route with a final stop to Barking, a direction nearly geometrically opposite to London. Delia had asked twice if they were heading toward the hospital and the conductor – an older, stalky man with an immense grin, a gold pocket watch and a dazed look in the eye – had reassured her twice of her desired terminus. Something had felt not quite right somewhere in the Welsh woman's gut however and had elbowed her to confirming with the young expecting woman sitting next to her.

" _You mean Queen's Hospital?"_ She had responded.

Four words, and the brunette had practically flagged the driver down, harangued him to stop the rickety red machine full of rickety red people in a hurry to get on with their lives. Delia had mumbled something in the ways of a cursory apology to the lot of them before – if asked she'd say she had well-nigh plummeted fifteen feet to the red dirt somewhere in between Poplar and Leamouth as she nosedived out the double-decker. At least a kilometre from her point of leap, she sprinted until she found a bus-stop for Whitechapel. All the way, she cursed everyone from Hugh, for stopping her alarm before she woke up to her mother, for making her take Cotillion classes instead of letting her play Red Rover with the boys like she had wanted to and increase her stamina.

A total of sixteen minutes late, and Delia was panting, her legs cramped and her face flushed as she hobbled into the London Hospital in such a state that it took all her might not to cry "Damn you to hell and back you self-righteous bleeding clod Norman Hartnell." The uniform, however flattering it had been to her figure – her husband's eyes, much to her chagrin, had strayed rather lower than her face when she wore it – was quite plunging to the bottom of Delia's arithmetic of utility, and she hadn't even started work yet.

She dashed up the flight of stairs, haphazardly taking two at a time to follow the arrows to the east wing.

After all, who was Norman Hartnell to bloody well decide what would be best for women to wear, wash and run around in? To tend to patients in? Who was any man to decide what women wore?

"And you are?"

Panicked brown eyes took in the scene before her significant moments after Delia had burst into the assembly hall without so much as a knock. Nearly 50 women stood in a block as even and congealed as a cake of Spam. Dressed in cerulean-blue uniforms, ironed stiff to the collar with blinding white aprons knotted and ready to go. The faces – all perfectly symmetrical, laden with Pan-Stik and decked in the same shade of lipstick – seemed to blink at her in unison as though from some nightmarish dollhouse.

In the centre of this sinister panorama stood an older woman with a stern scowl, and a hairdo that could win prizes for ' _Tightest Ringlets in Europe_ '; judging by the atmosphere in the atrium, Delia suspected, much to her terror, that her rather dramatic entry had interrupted something the older Nurse had been saying. Though she knew her not beyond a second or two, Delia decided right there and then, she never, ever _, ever_ would disrupt this lady for as long as she lived.

She swallowed. Most of England heard her.

 _Make words woman. Make. Words._

"Did you get issued that uniform lass or are you one of Dr. Jacobson's escape artists from the psychiatric ward six floors up?"

 _The nerve…_

If she hadn't been so utterly mortified, Delia would have gasped at the comment.

"It's mine."

The woman crossed her arms.

 _Oh you blasting idiot._

Two of the Nurse-figurines bristled and Delia nearly flinched at how absurd it looked when they broke from the pack. Muffled snickers sounded as though coming from air-vents then and the young brunette resisted the urge to turn around, walk – nay, gallop – out, hop on the number five and not get off till they dragged her off kicking and screaming or land met water.

Instead –

"Good Morning. I'm Delia, Bus- Fraser," she took a step forward, then another, forcing herself to strengthen her voice, "I – I got on the wrong bus."

Delia deliberated whether she should explain about having misread the numbers, but then decided she had caused enough damage. It was a decade and three minutes before the petrifying tower of a Nurse so much as inhaled.

The woman let her stew for another minute or two under her hypercritical regard before flipping through a file. Due to the fact that she was a masochist, Delia attempted a side-glance at the immaculate group of novice nurses. Close to one hundred eyeballs were snapping in between the older woman and herself. Delia shrunk back.

Her father would have shaken his head in that slow way he did – _"Time and money blodyn tatws…"_

"Very well"

Brown eyes darted up to see the unyielding woman moving toward a small table in the corner of the room. She rifled through a stack of manila packets and brought one back.

"Phyllis Crane – SRN, SCM," she said, and extended a hand.

Delia watched it like it was food of the Gods; then caught herself and grasped it. Pretended as though the handshake was just right, not at all too firm.

"Delia Busby Fraser. B-but I – you knew that already. As, as I said it… already" she said, gaze and dignity tumbling to the floor.

A few chuckles again, this time louder.

"I've heard worse things repeated" Nurse Crane said, more to the mocking crowd than to the flushed woman before her.

Delia managed a small smile, meeting the hard, but earnest gaze gingerly. Phyllis allowed a barely-there, pinched sort of a smirk and it was gone before it came but it had done its job – it allowed the brunette hope that her career, in fact, may not have come to an end.

"As I was saying before you decided to grace us with your presence Miss Fraser, you are to go on rounds as per your assigned rosters. Barring of course, the ones who will be asked to stay for conference afterward" Nurse Crane said.

Delia understood the insinuation and joined the very back row of nurses, thanking every God she knew to be allowed to stay.

A frail strawberry-blonde next to her offered a sympathetic smile, making room for the horrified nurse to stand. Suddenly, Delia felt terrible for judging all the women in the room as snooty and upper-class. Later, if she made it through this day in one piece, she would sit down with a cup of Horlicks and examine her own prejudices, she decided.

"We are behind schedule by a whole of four minutes. That cuts into our slot allotted for idle chitchat I'm afraid. We must make haste and run through our roster here – "Nurse Crane announced, looking down at the pad and paper in her hand, "- I see great value in timekeeping so we best not set back any more clocks than we already have."

Just like that, Delia grew another foot shorter.

The rest of the lecture consisted of more jibes Nurse Crane made to not only the Welsh nurse's tardiness, but to everyone from those who greeted with 'Hellos' instead of 'Good Mornings' to a few daring souls who whispered while the formidable woman was talking. Delia found herself craning her neck to look at the culprits, wanting to put a face to those fearless girls. They were each given a package with their lock, key and I.D.s. They were given their caps, stethoscopes and an extra set of batteries they were to carry in case those in a doctor's torch were to run out. Furthermore, they were given their weekly itineraries, a detailed handmade map around the London and a bus-pass.

"You may now proceed out the back door and to the second floor. I am –" Nurse Crane looked down to her notes, abandoning the thought as she went down a list "- Janice O'Connor, Betsy Macintosh, Frida Prendergast and Delia Busby-Fraser – if the ladies' whose names I just called were to remain in the hall please. Thank you and best of luck!"

 _What now?_

Delia took a deep breath in, steeling herself for what was to come.

The four women tried not to look too uneasy as they shared nervous looks and lopsided smiles, adjusting to stand next to each other as the older Nurse waited for the rest of the women to exit.

The last back of a white Oxford left the hall, the door clicked shut and Phyllis wasted no time.

"As your colleagues go off to meet with Matron, might I say – Congratulation ladies –" she said, passing another envelope to each of them, "I'm told this round of Nursing at the London comes with amendments to the job. Matron Smith has seemingly come to the conclusion that the four of you lot have shown exemplary performance through the years at your respective training schools. As reward, each of you will have the prospect of sharing a practiced Nurse as a guide with the young lady standing next to you – "

At this, four stunned faces looked at each other and allowed giddy grins. When three of them started sharing pleasantries and personal information, Nurse Crane interrupted.

"At your convenience ladies…" she held her hands behind her back.

The women fell silent and Delia patted herself on the back for her restraint.

"Delia Busby and Frida Prendergast, we will have the pleasure to get very well acquainted over the next few months as you both tag along with me" Phyllis said, reading down her notebook.

The slender blonde smiled at Delia in a way of formality before turning back away. Delia, still on a high at being chosen for such an honour, barely noted the indifference. The fact that she would have preferred to have gotten another mentor to make a better first-impression on as well, remained but an afterthought. Nonetheless, she couldn't squelch the gush of joy through her body. First thing at the end of the day, she would make a call to Mrs. Evans down the street from her parents to have them get in touch with her. Her family was not yet on the telephone but this occasion called for the effort, the young brunette thought.

She could hardly wait to tell her father.

"Betsy Macintosh and Janice O'Connor, you will have the fortune of Nurse Mount. She –" Phyllis looked at her watch, "– she was assisting on a particularly difficult birth last I heard but should be with us as and when able."

The two women looked impressed, nodding in unison.

"Before we begin, I must add you will bear a heavier workload than I imagine you anticipated, as you are expected to complete your regular Nursing rounds as well as accompany Nurse Mount or myself with your designated agendas – if anyone would rather a more forgiving schedule, please don't let's hesitate now. No time like the present to let us know."

The four women stood still.

"Very well. Speaking of agendas, in your case – "Phyllis looked at Delia and Frida, "- you are scheduled for District Rounds with me, and you two –" she addressed the other two women, "- will be accompanying Nurse Mount on her midwifery roster – both as arranged at Nonnatus House."

"Mount" a pleasant, slight woman with eyebrows in an ever-surprised arch interrupted.

Eight pairs of eyes zipped to her.

"That's the posh redhead ain't she?"

Nurse Crane looked nearly pained to respond, "That would depend entirely on how many 'posh redheads' you and I are mutual acquaintances with Nurse O'Connor."

"From Nonnatus House –" the mousey woman continued undeterred, looking to her chosen contemporaries, "She delivered my sister's baby last year."

"From Nonnatus?" Betsy chirped in, hiking her glasses up with a forefinger, "Sister Evangelina delivered me and my brothers! This Nurse Mount – she's a midwife is she?"

Delia fiddled with the corner of her packet with a thumb, trying not to be unsettled by the fact that so many people seemed to know each other before even knowing each other here. She would be the odd newcomer with an accent.

 _Stop it Delia._

Her attention focused again on the resilient conversation about Nurse Mount, watching as Nurse Crane seemed to grow more exasperated.

"About ye' Tall?" Janice was saying to the older woman, using her arms to motion now "She ain't as friendly as the other Nonnatans – my sister's husband Tony thought she was a right madam at first – but she looks like she walked out a proper fashion magazine, she does."

"You can tell her that for yourself Nurse O'Connor" Phyllis said, gesturing to the back of the room.

Janice O'Connor nearly toppled over when she registered her future mentor might have heard her and Delia bit down on a chuckle, along with the others.

The double-doors were pushed open and the four young nurses twisted around to survey the much-discussed midwife.

Delia had expected Nurse Mount to be older, even in spite of the 'fashion magazine' comment from her colleague. Janice O'Connor had not been erroneous in her description though. Even from this distance, adorning the same uniform as Phyllis Crane, Nurse Mount moved with easy elegance. The sort one cannot learn from textbooks. As though she had no control over it, Delia's eyes raked in the woman fast approaching – her silhouette fit and pleasingly curvy.

From the looks on the other women's faces, they were surprised too.

It was not until the ' _posh redhead_ ' smiled at Nurse Crane that she was in proper view and Delia stopped breathing.

 _Patience._

It was her.

 _Patience Mount._

Frida eyed her shiftily and Delia realised she had gasped out loud. The redhead however, was oblivious, barely glancing at the nurses as she walked briskly to Phyllis Crane. Pinpoint pupils did not leave her as the brunette latched on to every move she made, her body buzzing with excitement.

"Good Afternoon Nurse Crane –" Patsy said, and now Delia was certain it was Her. That self-possessed, clipped voice was unmistakable.

"I'm afraid there's been some developments," Patience – _Patsy_ – removed her hat, revealing a sleek French bun, "- Irma Black's triplets on Heath Street seem to be on a rapid move albeit a month in advance, and she won't seem to comply for anyone but you. She's been quite restless."

"Such is the nature of prima gravidas Nurse Mount, and those are ones with just one pram to get ready," Nurse Crane sighed, "Who's first on call?"

Patsy nodded, unhooking a grey cape from around her neck in one quick move.

"That would be Nurse Franklin –" she said, steeling herself for the next part, "– this is where I should tell you Trixie and Barbara haven't been able to get her to co-operate. She won't come out of the lavatory unless she hears from you."

"Oh for Heaven's sake"

"Quite" Patsy said.

The three women watched the exchange wanting for nothing but Bullseyes and popcorn to go with. Delia meanwhile, tried to regulate her breathing.

The last time she had seen Patsy Mount had been two years ago, on November 26th at 11:35 p.m. when she was walking home from the bus-station to her aunt's flat. It was frigid, misty, with subpar lighting and conversation had flowed like they had been practicing their whole lives. Patsy seemed so different now, like another woman.

When on that fateful night, she had been giggly and doe-eyed, right now, she looked like a professional woman – on a podium several feet above mere mortals, untouchable.

Delia had often wondered why that specific encounter, of a few minutes on a street of which name she didn't even remember, with a stranger that pummelled her to the ground, had stuck with her so tenaciously, refusing to leave her memory.

Then all of a sudden, a ghastly thought all too familiar struck her – what if Patsy didn't remember her?

 _Get a bloody hold of yourself._

"If I go now, the roster would be turned completely on its head – a triple birth with a first-time mother of 22 could very well take the rest of the day if not more" Phyllis said, a deep fold in between her eyes.

"Yes. Which is why Sister Julienne suggested that we switch rosters, that I take your nurses and you take mine –" the redhead said, throwing a cursory look to the waiting women, "- that way those scheduled to be on Midwifery stay on and I'll start off with District."

"Hell's teeth…" the older woman muttered and Patsy pursed her lips to hold back a smirk.

"I do know how you detest your timetables disturbed Nurse Crane"

"I'm delighted you do Nurse Mount, but I'm afraid babies tend not to be so considerate –" Phyllis said.

Patsy offered a sympathetic smile and handed her an overstuffed leather bag, "Everything's run through the autoclave so you can head straight there."

"Very well –" Phyllis said cautiously, offering the redhead her notepad and turning to the group, "– Nurse O'Connor and Nurse Macintosh, chop chop, get on your coats – "

The two women scurried to retrieve their bags, Janice O'Connor attempting to catch the redhead's eye in sign of recognition, but Patsy was entranced scribbling on paper, moving away from the women.

The Welsh nurse watched to see if the redhead recognised her name on the list.

Phyllis was strapping on her cape, "Nurse Mount, if you'd like to meet your new charges."

"Absolutely, Nurse Crane."

Patsy hung up her belongings on the coat-rack and walked to the group, smoothing imaginary wrinkles off her uniform. Delia couldn't help her stomach flutter as she saw the redhead come into sight, enter a sphere of closeness she never expected to be in with her again. She inhaled. This was it.

In the light of day, Patsy was for the first time visible in entirety.

If Delia was worried about the redhead not remembering her, she knew she had not forgotten her the moment they met.

"Hello"

Delia was not sure who had said it but from the four captivated women waiting on Nurse Mount, she reasoned it had been her.

Eyes as blue and complex as the sea were looking straight into her, as though to make sure they weren't conjuring up images.

Delia looked away, catching Nurse Crane's regard – watching them as though solving an Urdu riddle – so she schooled her expression to return to neutral from whatever it had been.

"H-Hello" the redhead croaked out finally.

"Patience" Delia extended an arm, "Small world."

Patsy blinked, looked at the offered hand; then slowly, like catching a firefly, she took it.

"Delia"

Her name sounded very different, very good, in that low, guarded tone of Patience Mount. As though from out of nowhere, Delia let go – slowly, then all of a sudden a smile spread across her face. Teeth and everything. Then she laughed, full.

"This really is quite mad"

"I know…" Patsy said, watching the array of expressions on the brunette's face like she had never seen them before. She allowed, rather fell victim, to a smile. Askew and sudden and shy and vanishing in a tick when long digits registered the metal around Delia's ring finger.

Like she had been singed, Patsy withdrew her hand. She confirmed the suspicion with her vision and then decided her feelings of nausea would have to be remedied as soon as possible. She allowed another smile, balanced this time.

"Sorry to take your time Nurse Mount…"

The thick Northern accent shook both women from their trance, they turned to look at the four nurses.

"Gosh –" Patsy all but leaped away from Delia, blinking at the older woman "- I – Of course Nurse Crane. I – I've got it from here."

"Hm… I'm hard pressed to believe you going by the pigment of your skin Nurse Mount –" Phyllis shuffled on her feet, readying to walk out, "- but I'm afraid the Blacks' triplets won't wait. Best of luck to you. To all three of you."

"I should hope you are more meticulous with patient-care than you are with public transportation Nurse Fraser" she added.

 _Fraser._

The redhead ran a hand over her face, cursing her pale skin for being so unforgiving. Delia nodded, looking at her feet.

Patsy took a deep breath in – her body and mind fighting for dominance as she felt elated and depressed at the very same moment. Eventually she regressed to a form she knew all too well, and that was polite distance.

"Good afternoon" she extended an arm to the testy blonde waiting on her, "Patsy Mount, pleasure to meet you."

"Frida Prendergast, pleasure's all mine" the woman showed a wide grin for the first time that day and the brunette allowed a small frown. Frida had quite literally ignored her at every opportunity of interaction.

"Very well" Patsy said, a glossy beam in between the two women, "Without further ado, shall we?"

Delia followed the two nurses, once again having trouble recognizing the woman before her.

* * *

 **A.N.:** Thank you so much for all your feedback so far. Please let me know what you thought, and if not, thank you for reading :)


	5. Chapter 5

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own _Call the Midwife_ , or any of the characters mentioned. All rights belong to BBC One, PBS, Heidi Thomas and Jennifer Worth. I do not own rights to ' _Poetry in Motion_ ' or any such published works of music, art and film mentioned in the story.

 **For entertainment purposes only.**

* * *

 **Chapter 5**

Seven times. _Seven_ times and counting Delia had nicked her stockings on the chain of her bicycle, or on the edge of a pedal, or on the side of a staircase, or something or the other and they had only just stopped for lunch.

Frida Prendergast was a smidgen more graceful about wielding the mercurial ride around Poplar. Only a smidgen, however, short a run or two down her calf as opposed to her frustrated, shivering colleague. Nonetheless, the two of them were absolutely knackered by the time they staggered into Nonnatus House and collapsed at the dining table. If it wasn't thigh muscles shrieking as they wheeled over notched cobble-stones, then it was a rogue child that seemed to materialize out of quite literally, _thin air_ , every corner they turned; and when it wasn't the sorcerous manifestations, it was unerringly shocking draughts of icy rain.

Somewhere in the hurly-burly of Billingsgate Market, after having seen their third septic-ulcer victim of the day, an unsaid competition had set off in between the two young nurses, both vying for approval from their trainer's taciturn conduct.

Hardly a few hours into her first day and Delia was beginning to fancy herself as Julius Verne's Phileas Fogg, battling hell and high water to make her desired purpose.

While she wouldn't be soaring in any hot air balloons or trekking through villages in India any time soon, add to that a deadline of eighty days was nothing more than an extravagant notion to complete her District rota – Delia suspected Poplar in this state of climate was as close to such an undertaking as she would ever get. As _anyone_ would ever get.

So, regardless of the fact that the Welsh woman was in severe dearth of a sidekick as steadfast as Passapartout in her circumnavigation of the East End, she was rapturous. She had seen as many varieties in chest-colds, in obstinate bedsores, in festering abscesses and post-op infections within the first half of her first day shadowing Nurse Mount as she had seen in close to seven weeks of Nursing School.

Every house they stopped in was a home, and every home had a story.

Gail Armen in Seacrew Towers was a 43-year-old school teacher nursing her husband's paralysis from a shipment accident, all the while raising four boys and two girls. She had been packing spam and bread for lunches when Delia, Frida and Nurse Mount had tended to Mr. Armen's lumbar blockage. The man was incapacitated from the waist down and in order to stop any infarctions of undamaged tissue, an elaborate examination of his skin had to be performed.

Delia had nearly choked when his 6-year-old son Raymond had looked up at the women with gargantuan grey eyes and neatly-combed hair and asked "Daddy play cricket soon?"

Frida had looked out the window, coughed and covertly swiped at the underside of her right eye and little Ray had blinked and Delia thought she was going to weep.

Nurse Mount, meanwhile, had finished bandaging the hefty man's shin, flipped him to his side, folded a blanket over him and waltzed to the inquisitive little boy to crouch to his height. Crouch too, Delia noted, an aristocratic hybrid in between a kneel and a curtsy.

"Won't you help me with massaging your father's legs, young man?"

As though wiping a slate white clean, the small boy's face had erupted into a grin and he had hopped onto the bed. The redhead had just begun to show him the placement of hands before his big sister had dragged him to school.

 _Well played, Nurse Mount._

The midwife, both apprentices noted, remained more or less unchanging whether she was probing a swollen ankle, administering insulin, debriding a puss filled carbuncle or standing quietly to the side as Dr. Turner informed an old woman she had no more than a few weeks left and would have to make arrangements for her senile husband.

Delia, at once in admiration and in discomfort of the staunchly clinical approach, did not know what to make of it. She had done rotations as a student in hospitals around Wales and visited facilities around England observing some of the severest Matrons, but had seldom noted behaviour this mechanical. Nurse Mount had her moments of compassion, granted, with crying babies, she was especially capable and with those who preferred a no-nonsense sort of an approach she was utterly welcome. For the most part though, she was not Patsy from that night in 1958. Delia was beginning to think she had filled in gaps in her memory of that encounter with fanciful imagination, for this stiff woman in that lovely woman's skin scarcely made meaningful eye-contact, never stumbled over a word, addressed her simply as 'Nurse Fraser' and smiled at Delia and Frida and every patient in the same way – a carefully crafted up-curve of the mouth, with just the right amount of crinkle to the eye, an amiable tilt to the head and no dimple in sight.

Nonetheless, the cases and this parish of people recovering from an evil war were more absorbing to Delia than any worry her day had started out with. Nurse Mount – in spite of her idiosyncrasies, was one hell of a medical professional, and one hell of a teacher – knowing just when to throw the beginners into the deep-end and when to toss in a lifesaver.

Delia, after all was not here to make friends – she was here to learn, and learn she would.

What had begun as natural rivalry in between Nurse Prendergast and Nurse Busby-Fraser – with inadvertent races to the medical box for gauze and Arnica when Nurse Mount called for it –

had escalated gradually into bicycle contests to keep abreast with the apathetic redhead's easy pace, and had deepened so intensely by the time they reached the convent that even as they arranged themselves as far off from each other as possible at the Nonnatan table – damp and blue, but red as ire – they attempted to keep a straight face at what they heard next.

"I'm afraid we won't be able to wait on the sisters for lunch. Mrs. Olmstead's just telephoned that her daughter's blood sugar's dipping rather low –" a soaking wet Patsy popped into the larder, "– Mrs. B will be fixing a boiled egg and a sandwich apiece for us. So a quick bite and we'll be off."

Blue eyes met green when Frida and Delia looked at each other for the first time in what felt like hours, and managed good-natured nods as Nurse Mount breezed out of the room. In the fashion of Greek theatrics, a nearly satirical quaking of thunder jerked the two young women's heads to the window. Vaguely, Delia wondered if it was her stomach. Against the tall Victorian windows, a black sky billowed no different than the sea, with waves of pregnant clouds fast as wind and not rain nor ice but something vile and viscid in the middle decanted out the October sky.

"A proper slave driver…" the blonde muttered, running her hands through cold, sticky braids.

The Welsh nurse eyed her but did not respond, partially because a part of her speculated Frida was not beyond snitching, but for the most part – she did not agree, no matter how tempting it was. The redhead was in this as much as they were, never taking breaks or making demands she herself did not stick to.

Having said that, the brunette couldn't help bite back a quick _'Are you even human?'_ as Nurse Mount swanned in looking a picture even as she was dripping on the Persian. Her fiery flicks sticking to a pale forehead as she pinned her beehive back into place. She handed Frida a brown paper package and then approached Delia with the same.

Navy eyes took in the smaller woman, ran over her sitting form quickly and Delia felt the urge to fiddle with a wind-struck, sopping fringe. As swiftly as it came, the attention was gone.

"Clean towels from Sister Julienne – she's in chapel –" Patsy said to both women, "- dry yourselves off. Nothing's more unsettling than an unkempt Nurse. I'll bring us a bite to eat."

"Appreciate it" Frida mumbled, unwrapping her package and pulling out a cotton towel.

"Go on -" Patsy said, softer; and Delia realized she had been staring, and that she was being stared at.

"Wouldn't want you catching cold."

With that, Patsy walked off and the brunette found her fingers taking longer than necessary to reach the cloth. She took a deep breath in and persevered, only partially aware of Frida's intrigued notice on her.

They went about drying their hair as best they could and started fixing it back into place.

"So you two know each other?"

Unaccustomed to being addressed to by the usually indifferent blonde, Delia took a moment to register the voice.

"Who?"

In a flash, any level of genuine interest was wiped off Frida's fine features and replaced by irritation. Firm and sure her brow set in place, and something bitter tugged at the corner of thin lips. She twisted around to the empty doorway and turned back, leaned forward.

Skinny pallid forearms crossed over each other and laid on the waxed wood.

"At least have the shame to hide it" Frida growled from between gritted teeth.

Delia sat straighter, glancing to the back unsure of what she was looking for, "What?"

"That's the trouble with you rubes –" Frida spat, clenching her jaw, "- your lot's so entitled what with reservations in this election that you think you deserve it, paying under the table and acting like butter wouldn't melt in your mouth."

"I have no idea what you're on about Frida" Delia said, scolding herself for the sudden thickening of her accent.

"I didn't expect you would –" the woman whispered, smirking, "- just because your yokel of a daddy found a few spare shillings owing to a good sprout of winter-squash this year doesn't mean you're one of us. A donation is a donation. _Charity._ No matter how you spin it."

Although the accusation of a bribe was as far from the truth as possible, and although it was borne out of nothing but professional envy – the words hit close to home, close to insecurities she had spent months squashing and angry salt scratched the back of Delia's eyeballs.

"You're out of line" she said, steady and measured; swallowing back an uninvited lump in her throat.

"Yeah I'm out of line and you cinch into the London Hospital an hour late only to get a free pass, no, get a reward while the rest of us worked to get where we are. I studied at St. Cuthbert's, so did Melanie and Janine's father is a professor at Oxford. Where did you go? To some country bumpkin public co-ed to marry into money?" the blonde said, her words spilling out faster.

Delia took a slow breath in, a thumb and forefinger pressing into the hem of her frock; old water seeped out of the fabric and ran down her leg.

"You can't ride a bicycle to save your life but that la-di-da Nurse Mount looks at you like you're the Countess of Snowden –" Frida snarled under her breath, bending impossibly closer so the brunette wondered how the edge of the table wasn't hurting her ribs "- You can try as much as you want but you aren't one of us. You never will be."

 _Stay strong. You can cry when you're dead._

Delia tried to remember what her grammar-school teacher used to say. When someone wants to get a rise out of you, it's usually because someone's gotten a rise out of them.

" _People seldom say what they want to say."_

Frida's anger – so potent and misplaced – was clearly about an issue that had nothing to do with Delia or Patsy or Nurse Crane, or Princess Margaret for that matter.

Didn't mean it didn't hurt.

"You can believe what you want to believe Frida. I can't change that" Delia said plainly, leaning back on her chair and cursing herself when a single hot drop escaped her eye.

"Hello, hello –" Nurse Mount's chirpy, clipped voice sounded through the corridor and Delia caught the tear with a knuckle before it dropped.

"Mrs. B's spared us half a chocolate button ca – Gosh –" she stopped at the head of the long table, two platters in her hands, "– have I interrupted something?"

Patsy watched the two women, arms folded against their torsos and jaws set like unoiled engines in fuming stalemate. They were not friends; it didn't take a genius to see – especially when they had nearly tripped each other off their bikes over every route they took.

"Delia?"

The name escaped her mouth before she could help it and both indignant women looked up at her in unison.

"Frida…" Patsy said, compensating.

"We don't have all day" she continued, "Mrs. Olmstead's waiting."

* * *

The meal was nippy, forks clinking against china as the three women ate in charged silence. Patsy, much to her own disappointment, found her attention incessantly taken by a certain Welsh nurse. She hadn't meant it to, it's just that she looked so worn-out. Her energy and genuine excitement about everything from the architecture of the Churches to patient's families was difficult to not notice over the course of the day. Was difficult, for Patsy, to not find endearing. So she had settled on addressing her as little as possible, worried that her voice would betray her, or indict her of favoritism.

She had had this feeling enough times to know what it was. She cut into a steamed carrot. It wouldn't do. She couldn't afford it. Put a piece into her mouth. Not now. Not for someone she would be seeing so often. Chewed, letting the honey-glaze dissolve. Certainly not for someone _married_ she would be seeing so often.

As though on its own accord, her gaze went back to a static profile. She watched as Delia moved food around on her plate, preoccupied. She watched as dark drenched locks fell on her cheek, then like a magic-trick, dainty fingers reached and tucked them behind her ear.

 _Stop._

Patsy dragged her attention to the strawberry-blonde sitting diagonal to Delia. She wondered what had transpired in between them to make things so tense. The two together had some distance of time to go. She sipped water. Well, the three together had some distance of time to go.

Competition in the field of medicine was a very existent thing, Patsy recalled her own years not too far back as a trainee. She strayed clear of most human interaction, save for a fag or two – in fact, she had strayed clear of any meaningful human interaction before Nonnatus and Trixie and Phyllis and Barbara and all the sisters. So, career-envy hadn't been on the forefront of her mind in recent times.

What's more was that Delia was an absolute natural. Intelligent and quick on her feet when it came to judgment calls of medication, prescribing bedrest or referring to doctor; at the same time unbearably approachable. The latter, a quality Patsy herself had still been struggling with. She would make one hell of a Nurse, maybe even make Matron one day, Patsy was sure.

Certainly, those qualities would prompt some friendly contest.

Once more, she looked at her. Delia had barely eaten. Patsy would have very much liked, in that moment, to move a seat closer and run a hand through her hair. Over her back. To ask what was wrong.

 _Stop. It._

Quite. She bit into the corner of buttered bread. Delia would have to purchase or beg or borrow or steal a skin thicker than this if she wanted to make it.

"Beetroot?" Patsy said, extending a dish toward two women, but keeping her focus trained on the thin blonde.

"Thank you Nurse but I'm stuffed" Frida said.

"Nurse Fraser?"

"No. Thank you" she smiled, uneven.

Patsy just about melted in her chair. She put the dish down. All three women twisted around this time, to some sort of scurrying in the pantry.

Delia recognized the nun from this morning, hunched not very much for what seemed to be her age, and attempting to balance on her tiptoes as she went about flinging open cabinets.

"Oh my god…" Frida exhaled dramatically, a palm on her chest "I thought it was a rat."

The brunette, without thought, looked at Nurse Mount for any sign of recognition of their initial meeting. As expected, came up futile and decided to focus on the rather intriguing older woman in a habit – still seemingly unaware of her audience.

"Sister Monica Joan…" the redhead stood up, hands on her hips "Did you need something?"

The nun, in one sharp move, yanked her fist out of a jar and spun around. Both hands behind her back and something in her mouth. Glinting baby blues glittered over the three women, a childlike grin wrinkling her chewing mouth. Delia couldn't help but allow a small smile in spite of how rubbish she felt. It was merely icing that whatever this delightful nun was doing seemed to be annoying Patsy, and anything that managed to worm its way under that woman's skin was of kinship to Delia.

"No need to burden thee –" Sister Monica Joan said, swallowing discreetly, "- for I am replete."

"Unlike the biscuit tin, I see" Patsy folded her arms.

The nun looked around the room, like an aged cat measuring its surroundings so as to plan its next move.

"In repletion or paucity or some land of lackluster in-between – who is to decide Nurse Mount?" she said, eyebrows low and knowing.

"Hmm…" Patsy looked to the ceiling as though in thought, "Sister Evangelina comes to mind? Trixie is due any moment now and Sister Julienne is just in chapel."

A sort of panic hit the Sister's face and she spread her legs and bent in attention. Frida and Delia bit into their lower lips to keep from laughing, stalwartly avoiding eye-contact with each other.

"I have a habitual feeling of my real life having past, and that I am now leading a posthumous existence" she said, her voice suddenly trembling.

"Right" Patsy sighed, a suppressed smirk gracing her lips, "I'm afraid Keats isn't a defense for every rule broken Sister Monica Joan, and you aren't supposed to be going through the cupboards just yet."

The Sister deflated suddenly, fists full of Jammie Dodgers came into sight and the redhead gasped, "Sister!"

"So Evangelina will be inculpated alas?" Sister Monica Joan said, her head ducked.

Patsy turned around to her two trainees, rapt and amused watching the scene before them. They pretended to cut vegetables as soon as the redhead looked.

"Just this once…" Patsy sighed, zipping her mouth shut "Mum's the word."

With ecstasy nearly cherubic, Sister Monica Joan soared to the sky – her cheeks and eyes and grin enlivening up as she moved rather quickly to the exit. On second thought, she stopped and revolved to face the chuckling redhead; slowly, she lifted a raspberry biscuit to her mouth, closed her eyes and laid a barefaced kiss in its gooey pink middle.

" _Now a soft kiss – Aye –"_ she recited, taking a full bite and sprinkling clean floors with yellow crumbs.

"– _Aye – by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss!_ " Delia burst out, rising up in her seat excited and hardly noticing her quadriceps protesting the action.

Three pairs of eyes shot to her then and before anyone knew it Sister Monica Joan had come and laid a Jammie Dodger on the grinning brunette's plate.

"Gosh, don't encourage her" Patsy moaned. The Welsh nurse looked up at her and saw red lips curved in genuine merriment.

Cold or not, she really was quite exquisite to look at. Delia blinked, willing the absurd thought away.

" _Thou art a dreaming thing…"_ Sister Monica Joan whispered and made her way out the room.

"On that rather lovely note – let's saddle up" the redhead dusted her hands, amusement still interrupting her words.

* * *

 **A.N.:** Did you all enjoy it? I hope so :)

 **P.S:** _Obviously_ , Delia can't ride a bicycle.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own _Call the Midwife_ , or any of the characters mentioned. All rights belong to BBC One, PBS, Heidi Thomas and Jennifer Worth. I do not own rights to ' _Poetry in Motion_ ' or any such published works of music, art and film mentioned in the story.

 **For entertainment purposes only.**

* * *

Chapter 6

The tall redhead crept out of the bathroom, glancing in both directions before giving one last good tug to her bathrobe. She scurried on wet tiptoes, leaving a watery trail across the wood of the corridor back to her room and closed the door, softly. So as to not wake anyone.

Sergeant Noakes had been staying at the convent with little Freddie for a few days. So precaution was the best course of action. Only yesterday, Barbara had strutted out the steaming bath in not much more than a towel and nearly knocked the poor chap down a flight of stairs at the sight of such impropriety. Not to mention the tomato-red girl had steadfastly avoided the officer ever since.

Patsy moved swiftly to the windows, peering out to the sky not yet breaking in dawn. She drew the curtains closed, peeled the soaking cloth off, and hung it on her chair. Chummy's home had been the quarry of rats, not in the least uncommon of buildings in the East End – and with her away managing Chichester's unmarried-mother home her husband was made most welcome to reside at Nonnatus by Sister Julienne herself. It was not that Patsy minded. She didn't. Although there were mysterious sputters of what looked like toothpaste dribble on the bathroom mirror marring it like stars in the night sky. Although there had been unwashed vests found hanging off backs of armchairs, off of rocking-chairs, off of every hook. _Although,_ the commode-seat had suddenly been found stiff and disobedient in its positioning – Patsy didn't mind.

She liked the man. He was kind, amenable to reasoning in spite of the rigidity of bureaucratic law, and was genuinely hardworking. What was more was that she absolutely _adored_ Chummy. So she was determined not to mind.

Patsy was pampered was all, in the sense of only ever having lived in housing shared with females throughout her life. In fact, the last time she resided alongside anything but was perhaps with her father, when she was a 12-year-old; and those six months before Boarding School were as good as living alone considering she and he seldom crossed paths. A tad too often for coincidence, opting to stay on different floors of the villa.

The women of Nonnatus House had a certain rhythm. Like well-trained square dancers they hopped and shimmied and sashayed to do and make-do with what they had, in however much space they had, causing others the littlest trouble possible. They had spats of course, mostly passive-aggressive ones – but seldom vicious and never unhygienic.

She patted herself down with a towel, enjoying the unperturbed start to her day. She had never been overindulgent of time getting dressed, about coiffing hair or putting on an extra brush of mascara – avoiding at all costs the generalisation of ' _the unpunctual woman_.' A generalisation, Patsy often suspected, her roommate had singlehandedly birthed. It was nice having Trixie on-call every once in a while. It was nice getting the room all to herself in the tender minutes of first light before the jostle and tussle of a workday set off. It meant she needn't slide on a pair of sticky stockings on sweaty skin for the hurry of getting dressed. It meant she needn't worry about missing the hook of a bra or a zipper in the back of a skirt – although the latter was a fear unfounded, never having materialised in her 5 years of nursing.

Patsy looked in the mirror. Undressed. Red hair falling on either side of her face. Her silk girdle sat on her bed, waiting to be strapped on. Timid fingers, not as stable as they were when taking a pulse or palpating an angry bruise, traced the marks on her lower belly. Lop-sided and parallel shooting off the swell of her navel they ran to her right hip bone. A vineyard – derelict and uncluttered with nothing but lines dug deep in earth once upon when. For a purpose that existed no more. Dulled, yet glowing off skin unequipped to keep secrets. Marks so faint now she wondered if anyone would even see them if they didn't know to look.

It was nice. To not have to care about rushing a clammy body into the suffocating restraints of foundation garments, for worry of questions. If she devoted time to thinking about the situation as it was – time, she would never devote to such terrifying trivialities – Patsy _knew_ Trixie had seen the old scars on her stomach. They had been sharing a room for close to four years now. As is the nature of living with someone, the blonde had seen every inch of Patsy, and she knew about her time as a child held captive in a Japanese Internment Camp. Trixie was clever. Patsy knew she could put two and two together and make an astute four.

Yet, she opted to talk of other things when the redhead got dressed. Talked of the latest pancake makeup Max Factor released. Talked of Vidal Sassoon's brand new cut and of men, of mothers, of cake and rum and quite literally everything except for the marks left on a little girl by a man who preferred brawn over words.

In return – when Trixie thought she was being careful and covert, slipping a tot of whiskey into her coffee, the redhead let her think she was.

"Dammit."

She wiped the sudden swell of emotion off her cheeks. "Dammit."

Inadvertently she glanced to the door. One deep, ragged breath in and whatever had dared to claw out of her throat and eyes was pushed fast to the bottom. Somewhere in her chest. For now. Patsy stepped into her petticoat.

In the way of mechanics, by 20 minutes to seven she was dressed in a uniform iron stiff, lips coloured in with the latest claret from Estee Lauder and her eyes tastefully lined in jet-black. A glance out the window confirmed that yet another spray of hair lacquer wouldn't go amiss. Struggling not to cough through a cloud of Andre Phillipe, she readied her beehive for quite literally anything from a difficult onslaught of hail to Khrushchev's mood.

It was one of those days she wished she could work alone. It meant doing what she was best at with space to compartmentalize certain thoughts she wanted to keep aside. It allowed her to focus all her emotional strength on her patients, who needed it far more than she did. It had been close to 13 days since Patsy had been appointed her charges and they had fallen into a smooth routine. All three nurses fairly professional. However, being in such close proximity with another person often made sentiments difficult to fence in, more difficult than they were when one was on their own.

Moreover, the midwife did not want to be caught again in the middle of two seething women constantly competing with each other. Normally, she pedalled on, pretending to be unaware of their animosity but she doubted her tolerance today.

Then of course there was the problem of Delia Busby.

 _Correction: Delia Busby-Fraser_.

Patsy stuck one last kirby grip in the back of her head, pivoting the mirror to see if all was in ship shape. Although that was not much of a problem anymore, just a minor inconvenience somewhere way, way, way back in her mind, she found herself tired just from the prospect of having to deal with it at all.

Two days into their arrangement, the Welsh nurse had tripped off her bike and Patsy had nearly leaped to the woman with zero spatial-awareness crumbled in a pile on the footpath along India Dock. Patsy had offered a hand and pulled the stunned brunette to her feet. Delia, ever so cheeky, had burst out in a fit of giggles; it had been contagious and the redhead had smiled all the way to their gangrene patient's flat.

It was not until later when she had seen Nurse Prendergast staring at them that her own reaction had frightened her.

That very night, the redhead had decided she would have to stop. Whatever this was, she would have to stop for the sake of everyone, first and foremost her own self. So she did. Bright and early the next morning Patsy avoided eye-contact at all costs, only looking at either Frida or Delia when absolutely necessary. With a patient in need, she taught generously but outside of work, she stuck to civil hellos and goodbyes. Eventually, the brunette seemed to have done the same and now all was well.

Only once, when a skin rash had erupted with putrid pus and a hypoglycaemic Frida had vomited on Mrs. Maccabee's veranda had Patsy rubbed her back. Barring that, all three of them went on merrily in the interest of healing and education.

Twenty minutes – Patsy checked her watch, strapped the black bag to the back of her bicycle and hopped on. A milk-float passed by and Adam Hudson, the milkman, waved good-morning to the redhead. She smiled back. Sister Winifred stepped out to collect the Daily Post and the dairy and bid Nurse Mount a nice day. All was as it always was.

She blinked away images of marks on flesh and dirty bunks. An icy, dry breath in and off she went, zooming down lanes and grinning at people she knew.

Patsy _wished_ she could have had today alone.

* * *

 _Ten minutes._ She was ten whole minutes early for a change and nobody was there to witness it. She huffed, leaning on the bench outside the London's main entrance and glanced at her wrist every opportunity she got. Delia did not have a _problem_ with timekeeping per se, but London was a labyrinth of a city, not to mention Poplar was difficult to delve through even in buses let alone on this whirling dervish of a bicycle the hospital had issued her. Add to that Delia wasn't what one would call a 'chef' and so breakfasts had been tricky. She couldn't believe how lucky she had gotten with a husband like Hugh, when every morning a promise of French toast had withered into toast and ultimately to cornflakes owing to smoke and the occasional grease-fire, but he ate whatever she put on the table with nothing but a smile.

So even though she was never _late,_ she had felt like a bad student in primary school when Nurse Mount and Prendergast stood waiting, prim and proper with their bicycles without fail. At least fifteen minutes before time she had rolled in shakily a mere moment or two before 7:30 a.m. Frida smirked and Patsy never said anything.

Today however, neither woman was in sight. Delia would have wondered if it was a holiday and she had got the day wrong if she didn't know they were scheduled to see Raymond Armen. The little boy whose father was paralysed. Young Ray had developed something akin to whooping cough and had been tended to three times since Delia had been assigned this roster. He was absolutely enchanting; a welcome little ball of bliss amidst glacial days of people suffering disease no better than poverty. His last visit had been grim, with Frida having taken close to seven pricks without finding a vein. By the time Delia tried, the boy was a screaming, crying mess. As it turned out, Patsy had to find a vein in his inner-thigh to draw blood and then start an I.V. because he was so dehydrated. Delia had chatted with him about car-engines – a riveting conversation about the latest Triumph Spitfire and its Michelotti styling – totally entrancing the boy while the redhead injected him with his dose of antibiotics. For once, spending time with her uncles spouting non-stop about sports-cars was a memory she was grateful for.

Even Frida, with her usual pomposity, had grown to care for the mischievous bugger. Spending time bringing his mother pamphlets about how to administer massages that might dislodge mucus from the chest and further methods of comfort were Nurse Prendergast's ways of showing how she felt.

The only person who seemed thoroughly unaffected by the 9-year-old's rapidly dropping weight and withering emotional state was, unsurprising to the Welsh woman, Nurse Mount. The woman was galling in her plastered-on smile and nimble fingers operating just as they should be as she stabbed the sweet little thing with needles without so much as a twitch on her face.

To say she was bothered by Patsy, at this point, was nearly archaic. The woman switched on a whim, from interested to reserved and from amused to indifferent in a matter of seconds. As of recent times, she seemed to have settled on the latter. Walking around high and mighty a statuesque stronghold of frost.

Patience Mount was a proper puzzle, and Delia _ached_ with all her heart for the moment when she would not dream day and night of solving it.

"Checking the time Nurse Fraser?"

Delia nearly dropped the bleeding bicycle at the booming interruption.

"No" she said defensively. She cringed when she realized her forearm was out and folded exposing her wristwatch.

Patsy raised an eyebrow, but did not comment. She pulled her own bicycle from the stand behind Delia and the brunette wondered where in the world she had materialized from.

"Matron Smith has just informed me that Nurse Prendergast will not be attending District rounds with us today."

"What? Why?"

"Touch of gastroenteritis I believe."

"Cripes."

"Indeed."

The two nurses walked their bicycles alongside each other, staring straight ahead to a police box. The smaller woman wide-eyed and nervous and the other one with a face like thunder.

"So it's just us both then?" Delia turned to the redhead.

Patsy jumped onto her seat in one swift move. Her cape falling gracefully around her.

"Mr. Mahoney's bedsores first. Wharf Towers."

The Welsh nurse worried she might have lost her vision she rolled her eyes so hard.

* * *

"But I still don't understand why we went for Povidone-Iodine if Dr. Turner's prescribed Vancomycin already. Jonathan's young and fit as a fiddle otherwise."

"Doesn't bode much in a diabetic patient I'm afraid –" Patsy shook her head, "- Prophylactic antibiotics are all well and fine when you're dealing with someone with normal blood-sugar and no heightened risk of infection. A neat layer of Betadine ensures protection to the epidermis just as well as Vancomycin does to the whole body. It's a Plan B of sorts because Inguinal hernia incisions can be - "she looked at Delia, "- well, complicated."

"Oh?" the brunette listened intently, "How do you mean complicated?"

The two woman walked their bikes up a cobblestoned footpath, hugging their coats closer as the temperature dropped. A row of Victorian tract-houses lined them on one side while the Canary Docks strolled on the other.

"For example, we had this patient on the ward in the London once with a gastrointestinal bleed owing to an E. coli infection. Now, the same thing happened where his elevated glucose was overlooked because urine function hadn't been prioritised. He was a 24-year-old soldier from Croydon. Nobody suspected anything, and he was prescribed Cefuroxime" Patsy regaled, "One thing led to another and a surgeon signed release-papers. He was back within 48 hours with a septic cavity. In prophylactic shock. He died the same night."

Round eyes blinked for the first time since Patsy started talking.

"My God" Delia breathed. The midwife offered a small, sad smile.

Both heads turned to a man as he came running up to them with a hand of bananas.

"Bring these to the sisters eh, Nurse Mount? You and Nurse Franklin delivered my Trudy last month and my Diane tells me she came out upside down and if it hadn't been for you fine ladies only the Lord knows what woulda' happened" he said, hat in hand.

"I'm sure Sister Monica Joan will appreciate the gesture very much," Patsy said, holding the bright fruit to her chest, "How generous of you Mr. Delaney."

The vendor's rugged face lit up in a grin, "You remembered me name."

"Trudy Delaney. Six pounds and six ounces of pure gums. Born three days before Holy Cross?" Patsy tucked a lock of red hair back, remembering the eventful delivery fondly. She and Trixie had celebrated that night with a cigarette, an Advocaat and a mug of Bournvita.

"Better get back Nurse–" he glanced to his shop, "But it's a right pleasure runnin' into you. Say my hello to Nurse Franklin and the sisters, will ya?"

Patsy waved him goodbye, "Consider it done."

The Welsh nurse watched in delight. This side of Nurse Mount, the 'midwife,' was so strange to her customary distant persona it was almost charming. Delia, selfishly, was glad that Frida wasn't here. Although she wished she didn't have to be ill and in pain to get this opportunity, it felt special, getting a glimpse into the life of Patsy Mount beyond her job.

"You worked at the London?" she asked.

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Unfortunately?"

"Let's just say, male-surgical was rather a catalyst in pointing me toward the East End" Patsy said, adjusting the collar of her cape.

"Why so?"

"Besides the fact that working with surgeons, _male_ surgeons –" she sighed, "– is an exercise of rather significant proportions in self-efficacy. There was a point where I began counting how many times I was asked to fetch an ash-tray for a doctor as opposed to how many times I conducted medical procedures I had spent years of my academic life practicing. Eventually the former outweighed the latter."

"That's awful," Delia sympathised, "How do you find this different? What you do now? As a young midwife living in a convent with nuns."

The redhead looked at the smaller woman walking alongside her, and found it difficult in spite of all her efforts to keep from smiling. Powder-blue eyes were looking at her with such mischief she couldn't believe it.

"If I didn't know any better I'd say you were writing a paper Nurse Fraser" Patsy said, adjusting the bananas in the crook of her elbow.

Delia laughed, full and unrestrained and the redhead couldn't help but watch, "I'd say you've never had a proper conversation before Nurse Mount."

"I know what you're thinking –" Patsy looked away, focusing on a woman across the street pushing a pram to hide the heat in her face, "To answer your previous question," she cleared her throat, "A lot of holy-rollers. But I can tell you as someone who attended Catholic Boarding School that Nonnatus is nothing like it. Granted, there is praying –" she laughed with a chuckling Delia, "– lots of praying. We do have to cover evening rosters when the Sisters are in compline but for the most part, it's quite practical. A tight-ship. Quite, quite like a family in fact."

"Is it?" Delia asked, softer.

"It is."

The brunette smiled, watching the redhead closely "And you like it?"

"Like what?"

"Birthing babies…"

Patsy blinked, suddenly unsure of what she should say under such intense scrutiny. The setting sun was meek in competition with the east winds but it didn't matter. When orange light fell on Delia's face, flowing down soft skin and glinting off her slight jaw as she smiled, Patsy was effectively distracted.

Delia was just very, very pretty.

"Very much" she croaked.

They walked the rest of the way in contented silence. Both pleasantly surprised at how well their day had been. What had started initially as awkward silences and stilted bike rides had evolved marvellously into seamless co-operation as work began. Talking of insulin and infections seemed safe-ground and they took it in stride, filling the spaces in between their cases. Chatting all the way to lunch and back at Nonnatus about post-op care and prescription decisions. Delia was eager to learn and Nurse Mount could find not an iota of flaw in it. Granted, conversation had never exceeding beyond medicine, but there was an allure to this as well – intelligent, educated dialogue in between two associates unmarred with any formality or trivialities of competition. Unmarred with talk of gentlemen suitors. Unmarred with gossip.

Well aware of the fact that she was jeopardising all careful progress they had made over the course of the day, Delia spoke,

"Patsy"

The midwife looked at her, brow raised in question. The expression on her face was unreadable and as blue eyes bored straight into Delia's, she found herself having to take a moment to gather her thoughts.

"Can I ask you a question Patsy?"

This time, the redhead tossed a cursory glance around. Neither woman knew when but their once robust gaits had now petered to a stop. Standing facing each other right at the opening of the tunnel that led to Nonnatus House – marking the end of their journey.

"Yes or no Patsy?" Delia said, aggravated.

"Go on" a faint crease formed in between her eyes now; she looked around again. Delia followed her gaze, leading to two young women not much older than Patsy riding their bicycles to the large convent. They were wearing the same uniforms as the midwife, capes fluttering behind.

The blonde waved at them enthusiastically and Patsy waved back. The thin brunette alongside Patsy's friend was smiling at them now, so earnestly that Delia couldn't help but offer an acknowledging nod in return.

"Your friends?"

"And colleagues" Patsy said, turning her attention back to the Welsh woman.

Delia attempted a smile but Patsy could see from her vice grip on the handlebar and the rise of her chest that she was not in the least relaxed. She had half a mind to reach to touch her. To tell her to go on. Instead, she took a step back and created some healthy distance in between them.

"Have I done something Patsy? To upset you."

"Of course not," a clean crease formed in between Patsy's eyes, "Of course not Delia."

"Th-then what is it?" Delia sighed.

' _Why are you behaving this way?'_ – Delia wanted to ask but decided it was too familiar. They didn't know each other. No matter how much she felt like it.

"Surely, I don't know what you mean" the redhead smiled now, holding very still.

Delia took a deep breath in, maintaining eye-contact as she steeled herself for her next question. She hadn't wanted to ask it, perhaps because hadn't wanted the answer. Small hands tightened on cold metal and her bicycle tremored slightly.

"D-Do I have your word Patsy, that you will you answer honestly? If I ask you something."

A bus swerved very close to them and a horde of boys in green shirts and caps stuck their arms out and screamed high-pitched, "Akela! Good Evening Akela!"

The tense woman looked around to find who the flamboyant greetings were aimed at before the redhead standing a foot from her waved back, "Good night boys!" she yelled back.

Delia opened her mouth but nothing came out. Patience Mount was the very last person she ever expected to be a cub scouts' leader, that was absolutely certain. Her head was spinning. She just wanted to ask what she wanted to ask and go back home and talk to Hugh about things she knew wouldn't make her heart beat so fast.

"Sorry"

Delia looked back up.

"That's alright," she smiled weakly, she braced herself, "Do you think I qualified for the Nursing Program at the London Hospital because my father bribed the director? Is that why you've been giving me the cold-shoulder?"

Out of every single scenario Patsy had dreamt would come out of the brunette's mouth, this one was not even close to the last thing on her list of possibilities.

"Wh-what?"

"You heard me Patsy" Delia said, standing straighter now. She pursed her lips and Patsy realised she had better answer or she was going to think she was on to something.

"That's balderdash – that's – no Delia –"Patsy shook her head vehemently, "No. Where would you even get such an idea?"

A soft breeze of air lifted off the water and slithered around them, seeming to take with it the very last light of day and whatever fury the Welsh nurse held in her shoulders. She deflated right before Patsy's eyes, becoming smaller with a breath.

"Right. Alright then" Delia said, uncharacteristically docile as she seemed to shake out of a trance, looking around them. The road was quieter, the streetlights on and cutting through dust particles in the air. She shuddered when another draft zoomed past them.

"Did someone say that to you Delia?" Patsy asked.

Something in her voice urged the brunette to look at her. Patsy didn't look defensive anymore, the way she had moments ago. A strong jaw set and cheekbones cut, she looked angry.

"I better get going. Hugh will be coming back soon."

Delia missed home suddenly. Her Mam and Dad were probably starting the fire now. Her house, snug and wafting of food. What the hell was she doing in this city with people who would never accept her? She shook the thought away and it came back and with both palms and feet she pushed and it crept back again. The streetlights now, yellow and orange and glinting doubled and floated, unhinged from their poles and sauntered around her.

She blinked.

 _Stop it Delia._

She didn't realize she had walked half way in the opposite direction before she felt a firm grip on her bicep.

She was spun around.

"What in the world has gotten into you Delia?" huge blue eyes were staring at her, perplexed and fuming and for once emotive and all the brunette could focus on was the grip on her arm. Burning. Authoritarian. Atoms, mad and zapping and alive in electricity shot through her arm and through her core and she wondered how inappropriate it would be to ask Patsy to take a step closer and hold her.

Eyes ran down the length of the woman. Suddenly craving the feel of her torso flush against her own.

"You act as though you'd rather not have me around" Delia pulled out of her grasp, cursing her voice as it began to splint like weak wood "From the moment I said 'hello' to you that day at the London you've treated me like an outsider."

"That's unfair Delia," Patsy protested half-heartedly, stepping closer to the crumbling woman "I've – I've never treated you any different from the way I've treated Nurse Prendergast."

"But I'm not Nurse Prendergast Patsy! We've – we've got a history. I'm not –" Delia stopped, brackish water falling out her eyes now, "- I realize what this sounds like. I – It sounds like I'm asking for allowances or – or favours but I'm not articulating myself well at this moment. I'm – You could at least look at me when you talk Patsy, is all."

She let go, frustrated with her inability to say what she wanted to the one time she actually had this woman's attention. Tears flowing freely as the stress and anger of sleeping with a good, handsome man with her eyes closed and soused with brandy came out in suffocating cries. She was humiliated. Bawling like a child in front of this frozen, horrible, terrible, bitter, beautiful pain of a woman she just wanted to be friends with to the point of obsession. Crying because she missed home. Because she missed her friends and she missed her parents and she missed not being lonely. Crying for Raymond Armen and his wasted little lungs.

Vision blurred with hot water and body thrashing with sobs, Delia barely registered it when strong arms pulled her close. They wrapped around her. Separating her from the smog and spin of Poplar. She melted into the hold. Feeling for the first time in weeks, like she wasn't flung into a black dessert groping for something to hold. Small hands fisted Patsy's cape in their grasp.

Patsy smelled so odd and was so warm. Like red roses and a busy launderette. Delia was convinced she would never smell anything else.

Just like that, it was over. Patsy had pulled away and was looking at her with concern etched over her features.

"Shall I walk you home?"

Delia wiped her face, desiring to crawl under a rock and die, "No. No of course not. I, it – "

"It was a moment" Patsy offered, smiling unevenly as her eyes traced Delia's face for any signs of worry, "I – "she swallowed, slowly releasing soft arms, "- I was a proper mess my first week out of school. It felt. I felt terrible."

Delia chuckled, snotty and wet and Patsy offered a handkerchief. She dabbed at her cheeks and looked up at the redhead from under drizzled eyelashes.

"I'm sorry Patsy. That – it won't happen again" Delia stepped away, "I – I just miss home is all."

The redhead watched, vigilant as a cat as the brunette began moving away, "Delia?"

Delia nodded for her to go on, not yet trusting her voice. With running mascara lining red eyes, the Welsh woman was glad it was night-time. She felt fatigued suddenly.

"There is a café. The Silver Buckle. We could have a cup of coffee there sometime. If – Only if you would like, that is?" Patsy said, hesitantly.

Delia wondered if she was hearing her correctly and allowed herself a moment to absorb the words. Then, she couldn't contain the buzz that overwhelmed her. She was beginning to seriously doubt her mental faculties now.

"I would," pale pink lips curved up, her voice hoarse " _Like_ , that is."

* * *

 **A.N:** Hope you enjoyed it! I wrote this one a bit fast because it sort of flowed and also because I have an early morning and must go to bed now. I'm so, so sorry if there are any spelling errors, I tried a quick edit but not as thorough as I'd like.

I must say - thank you so much for all your encouraging and kind words so far. They really mean more than you can imagine :) Have a lovely night!


	7. Chapter 7

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own _Call the Midwife_ , or any of the characters mentioned. All rights belong to BBC One, PBS, Heidi Thomas and Jennifer Worth. I do not own rights to ' _Poetry in Motion_ ' or any such published works of music, art and film mentioned in the story.

 **For entertainment purposes only.**

* * *

Chapter 7

A dull pain spread through Delia's right shoulder. No. Not even shoulder really. It was the odd nook in between her neck and her shoulder. A throb so noiseless and slow, it flowed with the all-encompassing viscosity of molasses. Thick, mawkish and glutinous it dipped shy from its barrel of morose aches and twinges and dashed free a trail down the terrain of her hips and her calves and toes. First one side and then another and by the time it was over Delia was nothing more than a small, human-shaped container of sore syrup.

With a soft sort of weight, the solid man lifted off her and flipped into the space next to her; for the first time in a half hour she inhaled. She was alive. Half-open eyes blinked twice to clean out whatever was keeping them into place and the Welsh woman nearly panicked when she heard the athletic panting. In hospital, the noise signalled emergency. Just today, little Raymond had sounded this way; chest small and unwilling as he sucked Poplar's polluted air in and out and in and out so it sounded like Fred Buckle from Nonnatus House pumping air into the wheels of her horrid bicycle. He had done that today as well. She pulled the white sheet toward her chin, tugging harder when it clung to sweaty skin.

Hugh was not Raymond though. His panting was one of a grand great gladiator. Brandished with gold armour and a sword and a precious shield in the centre of the Colosseum after a fight with his foot atop a decapitated head.

 _Like Fred. Fred's air-pump._

Heavy lids fell and rose again. God she was tired. The molasses now back in full force and she moved. She felt a heaviness in her stomach and she wondered if she was hungry or about to be sick but she looked down and saw a large white hand laying there. Motionless. Patches of gold hair on the knuckles.

She was _knackered._ Patsy was a slave-driver.

" _Nurse Busby, do appreciate we might save precious moments out of our day if it weren't for your tireless insistence on riding in spite a flat bike tire?"_

" _Some might call that diligence Nurse Mount."_

" _Yes and some might settle simply on calling it a 'puncture.'"_

"You do know your smile could light up every blotch of dark in the night don't you?"

Delia turned to her side, her entire body rolled and folded until the stinging liquid sugar was jostled once more. The hand from her abdomen came up and brushed hair off her face. She let her own fingers mimic the action, running over the angles of her husband's glistening skin. His eyes were so dark it looked as though there was no white. A motorcar or a shooting star or flaring missile zapped by their window and yellow light came and went. It blanketed his face and lit it so he looked, to the nurse, extra-terrestrial in his appearance. A smile, dazed, tickled over his mouth and Delia withdrew her hand.

"It's so lovely to see you're happy" he said; the Scotsman in him coming out through enunciated 'r's, "What are you thinking of?"

"Bicycle tires."

The tip of his index finger stopped its journey on Delia's nose. Two bushy eyebrows rose slightly and he grinned now with his teeth.

"Yes that's exactly what I expected you wee hen."

Delia heard herself chuckle. Off-handed and husky and she sat up and reached for the glass of water on her bedside table. Hugh followed suit, reaching for a lighter instead of a source of hydration. Delia held the damp sheet in place against her chest, suddenly wishing for a nightgown. Or a petticoat. Or a burlap sack. Anything.

Dilated green eyes watched his wife as she moved to the closet. She rifled through her wardrobe and pulled out a pair of blue pyjamas. The cotton sheet around her fell as she slipped into clean clothes, and even in the dark he caught curves bare. He averted his gaze. Hugh Fraser took a deep drag in, wondering in what universe he had gotten so lucky.

He had the most beautiful wife in London. In Europe. A woman who looked the way she did and could hold a conversation about politics, medical reform, education reform and who could understand just what he was talking about when he cribbed on about which investor did what – was not half easy to find. Yes, Delia Busby was a special woman, and he intended to do whatever he had to in order to make sure she was happy.

She seemed happy. He looked at her again, lacing up her trousers, hair falling around. She did. Some hesitancy was normal. She was young, and in a new city, with a new job. He couldn't help but sigh a little as she drew open the curtains, wrapped her arms around herself when a draft blew in. She was flawless.

"Dreich outside still" he said, blowing out a swirl of tobacco.

"Don't even say it –" she stood on her tiptoes peering out the window, at the blustering grey dawn sky "I'm to be riding on that bloody bicycle in this hailstorm, you're aware?"

"I still don't know why you won't just let me drive you to the London."

She turned around, watching the naked smoking man in bed, saying his words like they were a novel solution worthy of a Nobel Prize. He breathed out smoke, haughty like a dragon in shining armour and she gritted her jaw, busying herself with pulling out her uniform from the cupboard.

"I want to be independent Hugh" she said.

"You don't have to be sweetheart."

A sleeve caught on the edge of the hanger. She snatched the material.

"Yes I do. Besides. I have to travel on that bike all day long, you're hardly going to take off work tending to TB and festering ulcers with me are you?"

He put his palms forward and smirked, "Sorry," he said, cigarette hanging out his mouth, "You don't have to go blatherin' about ulcers now."

"You've made me" Delia said, pointing the hanger toward her husband.

"Oh alright, now come on back into the scratcher and let us apologize properly" he cooed, burying into bed with his arms folded behind his head.

"I've got to get ready Hugh. And I don't like the smell of those things."

"Fifteen minutes! Look, gone –" he said, jabbing his smouldering fag into an ashtray, "Promise."

The brunette gathered her clothes for the day and yanked at a towel, "I've got to make breakfast."

"Very good then. _Ten._ Ten quick, fast, apologetic minutes. Scout's honour"

Delia raised a sculpted eyebrow at the imploring blond man.

"Alright ten's ambitious" he resigned.

Delia padded around the room, heading toward the door, "I didn't say anything."

Hugh tossed a small pillow at the retreating woman, "Very well but let's not pretend like breakfast's going to take very long."

At that, Delia whirled around and offered an unrestrained gasp. Her clothes gathered in one arm, she bent down, picked up the felt cushion and tossed it hard at the amused man attempting to shield himself.

"I'll remember that the next time I make my mam's crempog!" she huffed, slamming the door behind her as she headed to the bathroom.

"As will the ceiling my love!" Hugh called, laughing.

The smitten businessman watched the doorway for minutes after she left. Yes. Delia was happy. She was. She really, really was. Delia was practically gay.

* * *

A petite pair of gloved hands clutched a crumpled paper bag – striped red and white in a fashion betraying its confectionary contents. Delia held the parcel close to her body, sheltering it from the harsh gusts of autumn as she watched carefully the woman standing next to her. With a pace akin to a sloth, the redhead protracted two long fingers and reached into the packet. Held in between the tips of her thumb and index finger emerged a banana coloured disk of Styrofoam. It was a three-dimensional, spherical capsule analogous to a spaceship. Patsy treated it as such as she spent a significant amount of time examining it. She smelled it and shook it and switched it out for a pink one. She looked at Delia like she was being made to participate in an act so inevitable and horrendous as a goat-sacrifice.

"Oh for heaven's sake" Delia said finally, "I'm not poisoning you Patsy. Children eat Flying Saucers. Just put the blasted thing in your mouth."

Patsy knitted her brow with exaggerated hurt and the brunette resisted the urge to roll her eyes. For someone who barely bristled as a little boy gagged himself half to death, Delia was learning that the taller nurse was quite the oversensitive, sometimes fragile sort of a person.

In keeping with the Welsh woman's hypothesis, the candy barely touched Patsy's lips and she scrunched her nose and made a hissing noise.

"Oh that's ghastly Deels. That's absolutely, entirely just –" Patsy shook as she spoke, dropped the Flying Saucer back into the bag and brushed her hands off, "- ghastly. That was ghastly."

Delia could hardly contain her laughter, shocked by the childlike reaction.

"You can be such a Madam sometimes –" the brunette looked into the envelope and back up when she heard Patsy gasp at the allegation, "- you're supposed to break into the wafer for the sherbet pellets. You're missing all the fun! Try again, here – "

Patsy physically stepped away from the offer, eyeing the candy-disk like it was a malignant tumour.

"Thank you. The four packets of Gobstoppers and countless sticks of that horrific sugar rock pop atrocity you supplied throughout the film sufficed quite alright."

"Atrocity? What are you talking about? It's like Tizer in a tube!"

"Which might actually be more frightening than Tizer in a glass" Patsy retorted.

"You won't know it now but the _Brides of Dracula_ will remain fondly in your heart forever and always owing to my steady furnishing of chocolates and lollies throughout."

"Furnishing? I might opt for 'sousing' as the verb of choice there."

"Oh how clever" Delia deadpanned, side-eyeing the redhead.

Patsy raised a manicured eyebrow, haughty and bemused by Delia's insistence on defending every bit of inspired, beastly sweetmeat England had managed to yield since the war.

"I'll have you know I brought those Jelly Babies with you in mind."

Patsy folded her arms, eyes questioning the woman strolling alongside her and attempting with every bit of strength to squelch the sudden flurry of butterflies in her stomach at the fact that Delia had thought of her.

"Just don't tell me it's because I'm a midwife."

Delia bobbed a shoulder "Some have to cultivate it, I'm simply born with it –" she looked to the redhead with utter sincerity, "I don't take it for granted."

"Don't take what for granted?" Patsy said, following her like an entranced cobra.

"The art of gift-giving."

The tall woman let go of a breath she didn't know she was holding and gave into the pull of her mouth. Smiling lopsided and looking away from the charming brunette only to wave hello to a couple pushing a pram who called for her from across the curvy road they were walking down.

"Delusion of grandeur at its finest ladies and gentlemen" Patsy said. The brunette smacked her bicep in a familiar way that caused no pain but only giddy nausea in the pit of the redhead's stomach.

 _Get off it._

For the first time, Patsy noticed the sun was setting. She glanced at her watch, then tugged at her scarf, attempting to hide the action.

If the brunette noticed, she didn't let on.

It was odd seeing her out of uniform, though it wasn't the first time by half. Patsy had had to take special effort to not observe everything Delia was wearing and how it fit her where when they had been to the café last weekend. She was almost appalled by the lack of control she seemed to have over her eyes when she was with Delia. While the Welsh woman opted for clothes not very flashy or even along the latest trends of couture – Trixie might have shuddered at this one yellow number she had worn to the flicks a few days ago – Patsy found herself arrested by everything that was Delia Busby-Fraser. Her hair, had she pinned it up in a bun, or let it down, or tied it half up in braids or left it loose in a side ponytail. The way she smelled, it was always of lilies and sometimes of butter and sugar; the times she had said she was attempting to make a new dish from some cookbook or other. She wore this champagne shade of lip colour that was gone when she licked her lips or none at all and never wore nail varnish. She had the smoothest skin and the glossiest hair and this lilting way of speaking and an obsession with Bournvita and Patsy Mount was utterly, utterly, totally, madly besotted.

"Hellooo Nurse Mount –" Delia was waving in front of her dazed face, "Anybody in here?"

"Sorry" Patsy blinked, recovering expertly, "Must be all that flavoured sugar going to my head."

"Forgive me, I've disturbed your otherwise balanced regimen of cigarettes and Johnnie Walker."

"Apology accepted" Patsy bowed casually, watching the brunette from under her eyelashes, "At least when I die of liver-damage, my teeth will still be intact."

"Mm…" Delia hummed, bending closer "What deliciously attractive prospects."

The temperature was dropping fast and children were screaming with evening glee. Along the shapely, cobblestoned carriageways of Poplar, the two women teased and talked and laughed. Unaware of the world around under cumulous clouds blocking bright orange sun, unaware and comfortable and captivated.

Reluctantly, they each went their own way for the day when they reached a bus-stop. Delia caught the number 8 and Patsy walked back to Nonnatus, hoping against all odds that she hadn't kept supper waiting.

* * *

Not only because her mind was preoccupied by the company she had spent the better part of her day off with, and not only because she was quite literally levitating mid-air, but when Patsy Mount walked into her bedroom, she flinched.

Round, stunned pupils were taking in what they were facing and she was sure she had been too distracted, lost her way and walked into one of the high-end brothels of Poplar. Then she remembered there was nothing high-end in Poplar, let alone brothels.

Clothes – lots of clothes – lots of clothes of lots of colours and fabrics and textures had quite literally splashed on all inches of the room like a pottery wheel gone bezerk. She stepped over a velvet sash and into a blue petticoat. A pair of glittering peach pantyhose were hanging limp on her bedside lamp and a green beret perched on another. A thick, dark scarf-slash-hat-slash-slacks looking thing had obscured half the wooden crucifix hanging on the wall.

Had Elvis not been singing and a glass of sherry hadn't been left unattended on the dressing table and had Sister Evangelina not scolded her for treading on newly-waxed stairs – the midwife would have called out for help, fearing burglars.

She opened her mouth meaning to say something when the humming blonde, casually crouched in the centre of a tall pile of mauve chiffon looked up to her.

"You look nice" Trixie said, bright eyes running down the length of the redhead who was now slowly moving toward her.

"The Russians drop the bomb right on top of us and nobody thought to tell me?"

"Not quite – "the slender woman got up to change the record in her dancette, "– not to discount the absolute exigency of the present predicament, however."

Patsy picked up a magenta pashmina she had never seen before off her pillow and tossed it on the blonde's. She kicked off her heels and dropped to the bed, only just registering the pull in calves. Her evening had been so outright lovely she couldn't even find it in herself to be frustrated with her room having been turned into a casserole of Turkish dessert. She reached for her packet of Dunhills, watching her roommate as she yanked out things from her closet like a magician doing tricks.

"You're not going to tell me what the present predicament is?"

Trixie was in the middle of tying a Warli-patterned red scarf around her neck; she twisted around, plucking at the bright silk with her fingers. She simply raised a finger to the redhead, signalling for her to wait. Then the blonde dropped what she was doing and poured her good Bourbon into a glass.

She waltzed to her friend, handing her the dark gold liquid. Patsy accepted readily, curiosity piquing as she a sat forward, taking a deep drag in. Trixie then proceeded to refill her votive and situated across from the redhead, expression grave and lips in a thin line.

"Has something happened Trixie?" Patsy put out her smoking butt.

"Please don't say no" she crossed a leg over another.

"To what?"

"What are you doing Friday night?"

"This Friday?" the redhead sipped her drink, stalling.

"And don't say you're on call because I know you're not."

Trixie had checked her roster. She must have had balcony tickets to _A Doll's House_ or something, the nurse thought.

"What is it?" Patsy allowed a small smirk, lighting another clove.

"Jared Tucker"

Round lips curved around the butt, sucking in a full smolder.

"What, the dashing ear nose and throat surgeon you met last Tuesday?" Patsy gently tapped her cigarette into an ashtray, letting the dust collect.

"Hal Elmer. That was three weeks ago Patsy –" Trixie chided from behind the wide rim of her sherry, "Jared Tucker's the aircraft charter I met at Billingham Docks during Ruby Iker's fifth last Monday. Remember? He filled the meter for the water?"

"Oh of course! So what about him?"

The platinum blonde took a deep breath in, bracing herself before saying, "He's got a friend and – "

"No Trixie…" Patsy moaned, sinking back into her cushions, knowing exactly where the conversation was headed.

"Just hear me out Patsy! He's a very successful shipbroker and he's abso –"

"I don't care Trixie!" Patsy protested, booting a purple corset off the foot of her bed.

"Oh for Heaven's sake just listen to me –" Trixie placed a hand on the redhead's arm, retrieving it quickly when she caught her expression, "Jared asked me to Russel & Bromley's for dinner and this Patrick Black's staying with him for a fortnight and he's got nobody to go with. He's so worldly Patsy and undeniably handsome like Gregory Pe –"

"If he's so handsome then why hasn't he got a date?" Patsy groaned, taking a large gulp of her whiskey and nearly coughing it up.

"Please Patsy! It's a casual business meeting with Jared and another business-partner and it wouldn't look good for Patrick to be alone when the other men aren't. You know how it is?"

"Oh so I'd be nothing more than a benchwarmer?"

"Not if you wanted to be more" Trixie said, eyes big and bright nearly naïve "This might come as a shock to you but I doubt any man would deny you Patsy."

A dark eyebrow hiked up, "Sycophancy will get to you nowhere."

"I'll do the enema the next we're both on the same round –" Trixie was begging now, her sherry left abandoned, and hands clutching the edge of her bed "I'll take the next three enemas!"

"But I don't want to…" the redhead whimpered, sliding her empty glass onto the wooden table.

"Four!"

Patsy swallowed a mouthful of her Bourbon, "If it's for purposes of arm-candy and business arrangements then why can't you just ask Barbara?"

The blonde rolled her eyes, reaching for her glass now.

"For God's sake Patsy, Patrick's a shipbroker not a – a – some – a – " she shook her head looking for a word, the burgundy liquid in her glass sloshing with the movement, " – vicar. And as sweet as Barbara is they'd have absolutely nothing to talk about."

 _For God's sake Trixie, Patrick's a man, not a woman._

Instead, Patsy just did what she knew best. She blew out a whirl of smoke and grinded her teeth, letting the fag hang in a wilted hand.

"Whereas _you_ have more experience with shipbrokers than any of us" Trixie was still talking. The redhead grumbled unintelligibly, regretting the tipsy night she had told the blonde about her father being an inter-global shipbroker. What she hadn't said was that she had abhorred the profession – one that left only memories of a little girl padding down a house too big for her feet, peering through heavy doors as men guffawed and drank brandy and negotiated prices of cargo and freight hidden in fogs of smoke.

"What is it that I do when you and aircraft charter are whispering sweet-nothings in each other ears and I'm sitting there cheek by jowl with this Patrick chap?" Patsy extracted the last breath out of her cigarette and let it go in the ashtray.

"First of all –" Trixie lit her first of the night, pulling her legs up onto her bed "- Jared's made reservations to Russell & Bromley's. It's a five-star restaurant. There isn't going to be any cheek-by-jowling. Secondly, it's just a glorified business meeting. Rest assured, there won't be any whisperings or sweet nothings."

The blonde was grinning at Patsy, proud, as though she had solved the problem entirely in mere seconds.

Patsy did not look impressed, "Must I?"

Trixie opened her mouth and closed it again, seeming to think better of whatever it was she was intending to say. Sharp blue eyes traced the redhead's face, then again. Patsy prickled under the intense stare, a sudden shift from the light-hearted banter that had ensued only moments before.

"Were you with a man today?"

This time, Patsy smiled. Crooked and honest and too tired to restrain any of it.

"Well then where were you?" Trixie folded her arms across her chest.

"I was with a friend from work. I told you last night" Patsy said, adjusting her head on her pillow.

"I'm a friend from work. Barbara's a friend from work. Hell, Phyllis is a friends from work –" Trixie got up now, agitated and pacing around, "- and we were all on call!"

"The other _work_. From the London" the redhead felt her jaw clench.

"Who?"

"A nurse" Patsy said, lighting another cigarette and avoiding eye-contact.

At this point, she didn't know why she was hiding the fact that she had been spending time with Delia. She was married to a man and had managed to cultivate several friendships with other females in the hospital. Nobody would suspect a _thing._ It's why she had been so lenient about spending time with her. Still, the subject felt secret somehow. Forbidden.

Trixie stood above her, hands on her hips and waist cocked to one side, "And is this the same _'nurse'_ you've been out with four times this week with your new lipstick on?"

"This isn't my new lipstick!" Patsy sat up, fingers crossed metaphorically.

"Oh please. You'd been wearing Yardley's mauve for months before this. I'd recognize _this_ one from five miles away –" her pupils zoned in on Patsy's mouth, causing the reticent woman to purse her lips, "It's Estee Lauder's sugar-plum in matte and it looks absolutely smashing against your skin-tone!"

Trixie's tone had escalated to that special pitch now; the one she reached only to summon dogs or put in place difficult fathers-to-be whilst coaxing babies out from between women's legs. Just now however, she had chosen Nurse Mount as her target and the woman was practically shrinking into the back of her bed.

"Trixie if –" the redhead cleared her throat, to buy time and establish eye-contact, "– if I met a man Trixie, I promise you, you would know before I did."

For a flash, only a flash, it seemed as though Trixie believed her. Fine eyebrows knitted together and an iron ball of unadulterated fear fell deep and from a great height into Patsy's belly and she regretted her words immediately.

She knew.

She knew. She bloody knew and she was going to ask. The redhead threw a cursory glance around the room; registering her points of exit and wondering perfunctorily if she would survive the fall if she were to summersault out the window.

Alas, as soon as the expression – whatever it was – had come, it was gone and the blonde went back to being indignant.

"Alright –" Patsy sighed, polishing off her glass with a quick swig, "Alright. What does one wear to Russell & Bromley's?"

In the nature of a puppet switching characters, the once vexed nurse was suddenly ecstatic. Eyes bright and blue and big and hands clapping soundlessly as she bobbed on her toes. Patsy couldn't help a bemused smile at seeing her friend so happy. No matter how unfounded that happiness was.

Before either woman could say anything, a quick knock led to the door flinging open. Barbara's kind face peered through the crack.

"Mrs. B's made an Arctic Roll and Sister Monica Joan's getting testy. Which of course means Sister Evangelina's getting testy – so – will you two be long?"

"You look nice" she added, taking in Patsy and then the room, "Oh gosh. What happened in here?"

The two roommates looked around and got up, getting ready to head downstairs. Trixie threw in a comment about cleaning it up later and the redhead didn't resist, practically jubilant to have escaped a potentially horrendous situation.

The three girls began their walk down the corridor, chastising and murmuring about spinach quiches and salmon rolls from the dining-hall leading their way.

Patsy bent close to the blonde, "This Patrick better have good breath if I'm meant to maintain a substantial conversation."

Trixie turned to the tall woman, chuckling "The best."

* * *

 **A.N. :** I hope you all enjoyed that! Please do let me know if the dialogue is bogging down the story for you. I am personally a fan of dialogue, especially in between interesting characters and so I can become much too liberal with it. If anything at all bothers you, do let me know, I am also learning.

As for your reviews and PM's, I must say they are some lovely thoughts and I so appreciate you taking the time to do that. It means more than you can imagine.

I must apologize for the late update. A new job and a messy personal life will do that to you. I will try wholeheartedly to get the next chapter in sooner. I know it must have been a tough last week what with all the abstruse exits (?) from the show. Fingers crossed it's all temporary and Patsy and Delia will be back next series.

Have a lovely day and do let me know what you thought if you have a moment :)


	8. Chapter 8

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own _Call the Midwife_ , or any of the characters mentioned. All rights belong to BBC One, PBS, Heidi Thomas and Jennifer Worth. I do not own rights to ' _Poetry in Motion_ ' or any such published works of music, art and film mentioned in the story.

 **For entertainment purposes only.**

* * *

Chapter 8

"Have you been hiding your diabetic five-year-old love-child in our cupboard?"

The redhead barely glanced up from her threadbare copy of Virginia Woolf. The blonde was examining something on her dressing-table, bent over, one hand towel-drying her hair and the other one shuffling through bottles of cold-creams and talc.

"This is the third packet of despicably colourful boiled sugar I've found in your custody just this week."

"You've caught me" Patsy said evenly, flipping a page "He was a World War Two maritime general. I met him in Monte Carlo and we decided it best to keep it all under wraps. For appearances and such."

Trixie gaped in mock-shock; she picked up the clear plastic baggie she had been probing, sniffed it and turned to look at her cheeky roommate. Patsy was lounged on her bed, back against a pillow and feet crossed, one tapping more to the drum of thoughts than to song. She was engrossed in a leather book of which the title the blonde could not see. Trixie pulled out a pink bon-bon from the packet, rolling the firm powdered sweet in between her thumb and forefinger as she continued her observation.

Something was different.

Patsy looked so relaxed she could have been asleep – which in itself was absurd because the woman never slept through the night, let alone in the day, switching sides several times before giving up and padding off and returning with a cup of something hot and a Dunhill before she finally went down. Trixie had taken months to get used to the movement and the shuffling. Years ago, she'd had half a mind to let the insomniac know others had early mornings and busy days as well, but something had stopped her; be it the fact that the then-new midwife genuinely tried walking on her toes and avoiding creaky planks in the floor, or that she looked simply as though she had no choice in the matter of a restful night, Trixie did not know. So, she had resigned to a life of sleepless evenings and casual wonderings about the redhead's state of mind. She could always lather on a swathe of cucumber and jamun honey the next morning and her face would be good as new; nothing to lose really.

She smelled the candy again, earthy and tart, she felt water run under her tongue.

A singular, black, spent fag lay in the ashtray next to the midwife and a glass of water.

Yes. Patsy had been different for a few days now, maybe even a week. Perhaps it was this new rota, the opportunity to govern over two young charges, must be supporting to one's ego regardless of how frustrating she claimed it was. Or maybe it was the new friends Patsy had made. Trixie tightened the knot along her house-coat, surprised with the spike of annoyance she felt at the thought. If she was not spending her evenings free with some smashing surgeon or even a general practitioner at the London, as the redhead had repeatedly assured her she wasn't – and Patsy Mount, as secretive as she was, was no liar – that meant she was really spending it with a woman.

Or _women._

She popped the confectionary in her mouth, letting her tongue press over the ridges and grooves of it before allowing herself to cringe at the sudden burst of sourness.

Trixie swallowed, not certain if she liked the chalky sugar enveloping her tongue or not. Perhaps she had gotten so used to Patsy being home when she returned from dates, from emotional births, that she had never noticed how often her roommate stayed at home. If she was not working, she was cleaning and when she went out, she went out with her and Barbara. Barbara was never a threat. The blonde knew she and Patsy were a match; they drank the same brandy and smoked the same cigarettes and listened, more or less, to the same records. Barbara was new. An addition to their group and they loved her dearly but she was not a threat. Her interests too different. So if Patsy had in fact met a nurse, with the same taste in cigarettes and records and brandy and if she too, felt about checkered shirts the way the redhead did then who was to stop her from leaving Trixie with her brandy and cigarettes and records and nothing else?

Insecurity over losing a girlfriend was possibly worse than insecurity over losing a boyfriend, Trixie thought suddenly.

With or without notice, she bit into the little bon-bon and a surge of strawberry jelly rippled out. So sweet her teeth hurt; the way they do when one drinks something too hot or too cold or both together and she must have made a sound because Patsy looked up then.

"These are vile" the blonde spat red bits into a paper handkerchief.

"Absolutely horrid" Patsy chuckled.

"Then why spend good money on them?"

"Not my good money, I assure you" the redhead sat up, adjusting the book on her lap.

"Mmm…" Trixie hummed, tossing the wet clump into a dustbin and strolling to her bed, "I always thought you were a Bourneville girl."

"Guilty as charged."

The blonde continued rubbing her towel into her scalp, finger-combing the thin wet strands every once in a while.

"I'm more of a _Topic_ partisan myself" she mused, melting into her bed, "Although the new Aztec bars are growing on me."

"Something about the Hazelnut…" she continued, staring out the window at a violently shaking tree, "It reminds me of these scones my Aunt Gertrude used to make. Barmiest woman in all of Birmingham but my God she could make one hell of a scone."

Patsy looked back at her distrait roommate, deciding to fold the corner of her page and slide down on her bed to face the daydreaming woman. She stretched, realizing how much she had needed her rest all week. As lovely as her time with a certain Welsh girl – a certain _married_ Welsh girl had been, she reminded herself – they walked so much and talked so much, Patsy barely registered how little time she devoted to herself or to even sitting down and having a biscuit and a hot cup of tea after a long day at work. She held the book close to her chest. Delia had dragged her to this duck-pond last evening, and it had been way, _way_ out of her way – which both, made her dog-tired but also more comfortable since it meant it was unlikely she would run into anyone she knew. They had already been seen, together, by multiple patients and especially to Patsy's chagrin, by Sister Julienne near the corner of the Seamen's Mission last week. So the evident duck-pond in Canary Wharf had been a welcome destination.

Turned out, the _pond_ had been a lake, and the lake was frozen over and usually she would have been exasperated with that sort of lack of forecasting and preparation in a person but the brunette had looked so utterly shattered the redhead had bought her a box of Maltesers just to make her feel better. Delia said she missed home. She said it often. They apparently had lots of duck-ponds in Pembrokeshire. A pad of her thumb worked into the edge of the book. She wondered then if Delia talked with her husband about duck-ponds. _Hugh._ She didn't often speak of him but when she did, the redhead found herself arrested by a nearby telephone-box, or the dash of a passing car or the asphalt. He was apparently a wonderful man, according to the brunette. She made him pancakes and he made them again when she couldn't peel them off the skillet.

 _Yes._

Patsy sunk heavier into her mattress, until she felt the beginnings of a spring in the side of her ribcage.

 _Yes. Delia must definitely speak to her husband about duck-ponds._

She closed her eyes, willing away the grating contemplations. The only way this was going to work was if she remained, remained in the here and in the now and in the today and with feet firm and fast and strong in the dirt of London – in the October of 1960. In the dirt of Poplar. She had agreed to befriend the young nurse on the one self-imposed condition – no more thoughts about kissing her.

"I don't at all mind Bounty bars."

Trixie wrinkled her nose at the redhead's declaration, tucking her feet under her blanket.

"You're joking," Patsy yawned, curling into her side, "They're a godsend."

"The coconut –" Trixie joined, yawning, "– its rather overpowering." Her eyes teared with leisure and drowsiness and she couldn't tell if it was really pouring outside or it only looked that way through the patina of water over her corneas.

"Oh and _Topic's_ hazelnut is so elusive?" the taller nurse challenged.

"The caramel balances it out" Trixie mumbled, burrowing under her duvet like a tortoise in its shell "What are you reading?"

" _Mrs. Dalloway_ " Patsy said, letting her eyelids droop, "Are you on call tonight?"

"No."

The redhead slid her book onto her nightstand; she twisted to glance out the window. Yawned again, covering her mouth with the back of a hand.

"If it isn't so mad out come evening, want to catch the flicks?"

Trixie opened her eyes, surprised by the offer, "I don't think Barbara's working either _. Brides of Dracula_?"

The redhead looked at her, biting the corner of her lip in apology, "Watched, I'm afraid."

"With your secret friend?" the thin woman smirked sleepily.

"Trixie…" Patsy moaned, lying back down, "Not this again."

"Alright. Alright," the blonde turned to lay flat on her back, "How do you feel about _Peeping Tom_?"

"The Michael Powell thriller?" Patsy asked, pulling her own quilt over herself.

"Should Barbara protest too much we'll promise her a trip to Ruby Violet for a scoop of blackcurrant after the film" Trixie said, laughing quietly.

"I'd happily get on board with that," Patsy flipped over to lay on her stomach, hugged her pillow "Let's have an early supper…"

Full, opaque drops of frigid water beat against the roof of Nonnatus House and the two bushed midwives slumbered through their lazy Sunday afternoon. Dead to the world.

* * *

Barbara pinned back a stray lock of hair, allowed a singular examination in the mirror and began collecting her essentials. She strung a scarf around her neck and piled everything else over her forearm. A quick browse over the wall-clock and she began muttering under her breath; loud enough for the older woman in a hairnet and rollers to move her attention off of an annotated volume of Lord Tennyson and to the willowy, flustered brunette zipping about the room.

Then she attempted, with all her winter things in hold, to slip into a pair of dark navy pumps and simultaneously clip on a wrist-watch. Much to Phyllis Crane's amusement, she slipped off the footwear and tripped only once.

The sound of jumbled, gossipy natter passed by their door and now both women turned their attention in the direction. The interruption prompted Barbara to look at the clock again and spin around and yank open the door and disappear. It banged shut.

The older nurse exhaled, more in relief than irritation. She adjusted on the bed smiling despite herself in anticipation of a long night without the sound of some American singer bellowing out as if in pain or the stench of tobacco. Before she could complete her thought, the door flung open and her roommate was back.

"You're absolutely sure you won't join us Phyllis?" Barbara said, panting lightly.

She looked up at the expectant young nurse from behind her soda-bottle rimmed spectacles, "Sure as eggs is eggs, as they would say."

"Alright –" Barbara glanced around the room, "– but only if you're positive. It _is_ the Victoria theatres. They've leg room now and it is Sunday evening."

"Precisely Nurse Gilbert," Phyllis placed her finger as a bookmark on the page and held it against her lap, "Call me no mathematician but that calculates and makes tomorrow Monday morning. I shall require a full night's rest without dallying about the East End in the dead of cold. Not to mention if I wanted to see a depraved lad peeping through windows at young girls I could merrily do it without paying two and six for free down on Montgomery Dock any time after 8 p.m."

"W-well –" Barbara moved into the room hesitantly, hand still clasping the handle, "It is not exactly about that – this man takes photographs of young girls you see? And then murders them after making perverted films. It's, it's all quite novel in fact."

The older nurse tilted her head to the side, appraising her young roommate with a good heart. She then pulled off her glasses and allowed the slightest of smiles.

"No lass. Tennyson and I've got a long-standing meeting tonight. But thank you for your offer, I shall remember it. The three of you go on."

With that, the young girl nodded and traipsed down the flight of stairs. Back in her room, Phyllis smiled for other reasons. As inane as she found most modern films and as ghastly as she found the taste of most things Nurse Franklin conjured up, it was rather touching to be asked to go see a film about a depraved lad peeping through windows at young girls. She felt a part of something.

"Finally!" the blonde's shrill voice made Patsy jump out of her seat. "What were you doing? We're going to miss the opening and it's a preview to the new Clark Gable flick. I am _not_ going to miss that…"

"Sorry Trixie. I was making sure Phyllis wasn't going to change her mind."

"Have you ever known her to Barbara?" she said. The two women bantered on and Patsy handed the young woman her sandwich wrapped in brown paper. They slipped into their coats and gloves and hats and hurried out the door.

It wasn't until the hand of frigid London splashed across the women's faces and they gasped in unison that Barbara – through watery eyes – noticed the older nun on the redhead's arm.

"Oh thou whose face hath felt the Winter's wind, whose eye has seen snow-clouds hung mist -" she stopped and three shivering women turned to her, "The east gale across the North Atlantic proves to have frayed utterings of his off the edges of my memory."

"The television signal's been giving trouble again I'm afraid –" Patsy said to a curious brunette, "Sister Monica Joan was rather upset about missing the latest Juke Box Jury episode so Trixie suggested she come along."

"To watch _Peeping Tom_?"

"She's been living in Poplar half her life it should hardly come as a shock" Patsy said, guiding the woman down the stairs. Trixie chuckled, fixing the tips of leather gloves in place and checking her reflection in the mirror of a parked car. Barbara grabbed her hand and began tugging her in the opposite direction.

"They have mirrors at the Victoria, Trixie."

"They also have handsome young men out on the weekend at the Victoria, _Barbara_ ," the blonde didn't miss a beat, tweaking her beret and catching up with the rest of the women.

They began their walk down the street when a bicycle zoomed too close past them. The nurses turned their necks to look – except the nun, who was absorbed in a patch of frost glazing a nearby pine.

"You girls bring her 'back in one piece!" the thunderous command boomed from across the byway.

"Good night Sister Evangelina!" Trixie waved, laughing and the ladies of Nonnatus commenced their journey to the bus-stop. Huddled together for warmth.

* * *

Delia and Hugh Fraser hopped out of a silver Bentley on the crowded curb next to the Victoria Cinemas just out of Poplar. The young woman tripped on the edge of the footpath and her husband caught her forearm, tossing the keys to an eager valet.

"Like the loveliest bull in a china shop" he whispered.

Delia gasped, smacking him across the chest as she scuttled on tiptoes toward the long line, "You try walking in these," she looked down at her high-heels, "Then we'll talk."

The tall man let the young nurse guide him through the throng of men in hats and women in long furs, ducking and bending like children in a corn-field, "If I walked in those you wouldn't have married me."

"You don't know my taste" she smirked, looking right into lovesick pistachio-green eyes. She turned back around, appraising the crowd and evaluating the best way to navigate through.

Her husband meanwhile, was focused not a fraction on his surroundings. His wife had worn this dress of solid silk dyed bottomless in peacock; granted, upon his own urging. It's just that he had gotten it for her from a designer boutique in Paris for her last birthday and he just _knew_ it was made for her. It was rather an alluring number with a chiffon sash cinching her small waist and the fall adoring her hips hemming off just above her knees. The outfit cut a sweetheart-neckline and fit well around her chest; clinging enough to be tempting but not unsavory.

Under the bright lights and sudden shadows of the luxurious movie theatre, Delia glistened and shimmered and went invisible and then glittered once more as she moved deftly through the lines.

Delia had bathed just before the pictures and left her hair loose save for a butterfly clip pinning two parts of her hair back adjacent to each other. Her fringe was left natural and tossed haphazardly on one side, obscuring half of her vision. Lustrous, dark locks fell down her shoulders and over her breasts, untamed. A fine silver chain with a locket her mother had given her hung around her neck and every other man glanced casually as the gleeful young woman, practically unaware of how tempting she looked, skipped and stooped and danced her way to the ticket-booth.

"God – we have to hurry…" Hugh said, glancing at his watch.

A quick transaction and the couple grabbed their tickets, speeding through the lobby and reading for their directions to the hall.

"Damned Londoners – half the city wants to watch a madman peekin' at women. Can't be a good sign can it?" he said to his wife. Delia chuckled but didn't respond.

Hugh bought stubs for served-seating and they hurried against a torrent of movie watchers all going in different directions like utterly confused, manic gusts of wind. Delia apologized to nearly every lady and gent she managed to stomp the toes of.

"Over here!" she shouted to her husband straggling behind. Just in that moment, that she had twisted around looking for her film-companion while reaching to the darkened theatre now rumbling with adverts – she was assaulted with what seemed to be a pound and half at least of popcorn.

Stunned, she looked down at herself; strewn inside her dress and on her shoulders and some in her hair – dark brown and light yellow kernels of popped, salted, buttered grain had washed over her _thoroughly,_ and if she hadn't been coughing from the seasoning she might have even laughed.

"Darling – God. Sweetheart are you alright?" she felt Hugh's hand on her back and brushed off the snack as best she could. It wasn't until moments later that she decided to look up and give the culprit a piece of her mind.

The couple looked from Delia's dress up to the aghast redhead in unison.

A row of four women stood staring at the popcorn-marinated Welsh nurse. Delia, so stunned at the sudden onslaught registered nothing but her heart doing leaps and flutters and such things seeing the horror-struck woman.

Blue eyes, arrested and round as sixpence were staring at Delia and the redhead's hands had covered her mouth.

Sister Monica Joan, utterly disturbed by the commotion, had her palms against her ears.

"Patsy!" a pretty blonde next to the culprit snarled under her breath, "Apologize! Whatever's the matter with you?"

As though snapping out of her hypnotism, Patsy shook suddenly, "G-gosh. Gosh I'm so very sorry Delia."

"You two know each other?" Trixie chirped, and the redhead elbowed her admonishingly.

She reached forward to help clean off crumbs and then realized their location and how she absolutely could not do that. Bless her heart, a sympathetic Barbara offered the tall midwife her handkerchief and she handed it hesitantly to the brunette.

"I'm sorry" Patsy said again.

Delia allowed an amused smirk now; catching up with the developments over the last few minutes like warming to a cold swimming pool. She looked the woman up and down and accepted the proposed hankie. For the first time, she turned to her companions, recognizing the older nun instantly and just barely the two young women with her.

Ten eyes watched Delia as she smiled softly and brushed at her dress with Barbara's cloth.

"One should think I'd be used to it by now" she said, and Patsy let go of a breath, tapering it off with a tired smile.

"No harm done I suppose" the singular man inched in, and all women turned to look at the dashing fellow "It's not like it was vinegar and hot chips or anything."

The redhead felt herself stiffen, registering suddenly his arm around Delia and who he must be.

 _Jesus she looked breathtaking._

"Yes and thank the Lords of couture for that –" Trixie said, coming closer to assess the brunette's dress like a hunting lioness, "That is _not_ Coco Chanel."

"It is in fact" Hugh smiled, blinding and Delia nodded yes, dragging her eyes away from the redhead.

"You look an absolute _picture_ in it, like a young Natalie Wood –" Trixie said, more an accusation than a compliment as she adjusted the collar of her own dress, "Delia was it?"

"Right" the brunette said, smiling and extending a hand.

"Beatrix Franklin. But everybody calls me Trixie," they shook.

"Barbara Gilbert" the smiling brunette next to Patsy offered, "You're outfit is very pretty."

Delia felt herself unwind. Taken aback a little by her odd reaction to seeing Patsy so attractive and smart in trousers, a tight jumper and her hair curly and half-up like that. She was used to seeing her all made-up most times. But she wouldn't think of that now; she forced herself to remember her manners and proceeded with pleasantries.

Barbara held the older nun's hand, reassuring her that they would be heading into the film soon.

"Hugh –" Delia cleared her throat, "This is Patsy. Patsy Mount."

"You're joking –" clear eyes lit up with genuine joy and he smiled big and wide, "How pure dead brilliant."

The redhead smiled cordially at him, head tilted only marginally and hands clasped together.

"What is?"

"Meeting you, finally!" he said, "Delia talks about you _all_ the time."

Patsy swallowed. Not sure how to feel about those words coming from that mouth with that palm on the small of that back. She decided to arch her eyebrow at the uncharacteristically embarrassed brunette, sighed internally at the bit of colour seeping into the woman's cheeks.

Whatever warmth she felt was gone then when Delia touched his chest, as though to ask him to stop.

"I'm so happy she's met a good friend" he pulled the woman closer and the brunette pursed her lips. Suddenly uneasy at feeling so owned and spoken for.

Trixie opened her mouth to inquire where her friend knew this Welsh woman and this absolutely handsome chap from but Sister Monica Joan beat her to it,

"Who is in charge of the clattering train? The axles creak and the couple strain… and the pace is hot and the points are near, and sleep hath deadened the driver's ear…"

All parties turned to her and Delia offered a small smile, bending forward to touch the wrinkled hand. The older woman took but a moment to identify the touch, clutching the small woman with surprising force. The innocuous but wise face twinkled suddenly with recognition and she grinned until a face marred with decades split open, "Thou are a dreaming thing, Nurse Busby…" she said, earning a giggle from the Welsh woman.

"I would quite agree with those sentiments" Hugh said, watching his wife.

Patsy swallowed, seething at the man having plagiarized the very words out of her mouth.

"I'm so bloody confused" Trixie whispered to Barbara who nodded in agreement and asked her to hush up.

"I rather think we best get going. I shan't anticipate _Peeping Tom_ to wait for civilities," Patsy said; through a bright smile but commanding enough that nobody protested.

The group entered the cinema-hall. The redhead briefly filled Trixie in – not by choice but merely because she knew there were very few alternatives – regarding who Delia was and who Frida was and how they all knew each other. The party sat in the same row with Patsy on one end and Hugh Fraser on the other. The Sister situated herself next to the brunette who was wrapped with a strapping arm.

Delia bent closer to the senile woman, waiting until she had her attention.

"… And the signals flash through the night in vain, for death is in charge of the clattering train…" Delia said, completing her earlier verse.

Sister Monica Joan clasped the brunette's hand throughout the film.

On the other side – Patsy tried her absolute best to focus on the flick and the screeching women and the psychotic madman hacking away and yet – as though there was a compact cylinder of steel inside her chest and Delia Busby was a magnet somewhere in the dark to the east – she felt the pull hard and strong and unyielding throughout. She looked but could only catch glimpses when someone or the other shuffled.

Barbara gasped every once in a while, and the redhead barely registered it. The blonde muttered assurances of comfort to her.

"Delia's husband is quite easy on the eyes."

Patsy felt her fingers grip the arms of her chair tighter at Trixie's words. She wished she would stop talking.

"So is Delia I suppose," she continued and Patsy nodded simply, looking straight to the film. Her heart was in pain, what with being pulled so relentlessly in one direction, the pull, not minding the flesh and blood and bone in its way. Oh God, how she wanted to be the one to wrap her arms around that beautiful, _beautiful_ woman. How she wanted to go home with her.

 _What was happening to her?_

Patsy swallowed down something bitter and sour, forcing her feet back down to Earth. Down to Poplar. Down to 1960.

Unaware, unaware _utterly_ of how she too, was a magnet. A magnet to a compact cylinder of metal – of bronze or gold or copper or platinum – yanking just as inexorably on a heart somewhere in the dark to the east.

* * *

 **A.N. –** As always, thank you so, so much for sticking by this story and leaving comments about what you thought (or not necessarily leaving comments, but being a quiet reader). I do know – from reviews and PMs – some of you are upset by the marriage plot line.

I just have always thought it an easy thing to have happened to Patsy and Delia if they had so much as just a bit of alteration in their timelines of first-meeting. I really wanted to explore that, the concept of soul-mates regardless of logistics, through this story. I hope that offers some insight into my thought process?

I do want to stress that I don't mean to offend anyone through this story, and I am sorry if I have done so.

Otherwise, have a lovely day and I hope you all enjoyed this chapter :)


	9. Chapter 9

**_Disclaimer:_** I do not own _Call the Midwife_ , or any of the characters mentioned. All rights belong to BBC One, PBS, Heidi Thomas and Jennifer Worth. I do not own rights to ' _Poetry in Motion_ ' or any such published works of music, art and film mentioned in the story.

 **For entertainment purposes only.**

* * *

Chapter 9

Monday morning dawned along with the first day of November that year, and the East End fell into rhythm like an old habit. Newspaper boys were back with a vengeance, up early dressed for school and with aim as menacing as ever. Delia dodged a rather formidable reel of the _Poplar Observer_ and made a sharp turn on the corner of Hanover, skirting around a man with a cart of parsnip; she stood on the pedals to balance as she tossed back a haphazard apology to the shrieking gent. Two heavily pregnant women hauling prams on an upslope looked at her funny and she realized she was grinning from ear to ear, like a proper fool, gloriously proud of herself for having managed such a trick without a fall. She waved good morning to the pair and then beamed even brighter when she realized she was wheeling masterfully around scatterings of All Hallows Eve rubbish, sticky remnants of toffee-apples and smears of crushed pumpkin mostly, with only one palm on the handle-bar.

Only when the big clock at the top gable of the Royal London Hospital came into view, edging timidly through sunken rainclouds, did the brunette feel any of winter in the tips of her fingers. She sobered, breathing out a long string of white vapour through her mouth and wondering, as she had often done as the child of a chain-smoking businessman, if that's how smokers felt always. She cut a smooth turn, without thinking this time; she checked her watch and was practically certain Frida and Patsy would be waiting for her already.

Another huff of vapour now. She smiled at an ambulance driver, having to make effort to do it suddenly.

Last night at the pictures had been a welcome break in everyday schedule, but she and Hugh had stopped for a drink in a nearby pub and gotten home at half past eleven. Both of them yawning through their breakfasts of cornflakes and tea this morning before heading their own ways.

Patsy and her friends had probably reached home sooner, she guessed. Unless they too stopped for a drink of course. Call her presumptuous, but she didn't think Sister Monica Joan was very much the connoisseur of fermented beverages.

She signalled right with an arm stuck out and turned again, greeted with more ambulatory vehicles. She was close. A familiar sensation began somewhere near her diaphragm at a land in between her heart and liver; of heat so hot it burned like pressure in a coal-mine. The sensation was familiar enough to her mornings right before meeting her two fellow nurses that she barely registered it anymore.

Another exhalation now, one with less stability.

Truth be told, Delia had not thought much about last night. It had been the sort of memory that in theory was excellent – perfectly notable having run into her favourite friend with her husband at an unexpected location owing to battery by popped grain. The instance had all the makings of a dinner-party anecdote, it was witty and sweet and just too coincidental. Yet, Delia wondered if she had already imagined such a scenario – of running into her favourite friend with her husband at an unexpected location – a thousand times and over in her mind. So that the actual happening of it felt like an out of body experience of mediocrity. One that simply did not match up to whatever it was she had pictured.

Patsy hadn't even said goodbye to her, only waved from behind the group of her friends. Granted they were in a hurry and it was jam-packed but still, it had felt unsatisfactory; and caused a night of fitful, dreamless sleep. Delia found she berated herself every occasion the redhead impacted her. For someone who was, most times, as outwardly put-together as the royal family, Patience Mount was a complex, chaotic being to have to depend on. Even now that they were on good terms, _great_ terms, the midwife hung on obstinately to her tendency to change temperatures like a wrecked boiler. Granted, the harshness of it had lessened from before Delia's embarrassing meltdown in the middle of the street, she recalled shamefully, but it seemed in Patsy's nature to travel in and out of her own mind; and Delia was dismayed by herself for being hurt by the behaviour every time. Perhaps she had hoped the unpredictability would subside as their friendship progressed, but so far, it hadn't budged. And of _course_ , Delia couldn't mention it. No. Because it would spook Patsy away and she would smile that unfeeling smile, and respond with something infuriating like _'I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about_ ' or even worse, _'I'm rather tired. Rain-check on the Banoffee pie?'_

 _Uhg. How convenient._ Delia heard her own molars grinding.

As per usual, she glanced around and swerved to a halt under a ledge where trucks unloaded medical supplies. Quickly, when she was sure nobody was looking, she fixed her hair. Watching her distorted reflection in the window of a car, she pulled out some lip colour and retouched as best she could. Another moment to fix her cap and smooth her coat and she was off.

The hot heat coal-mine pressure thing inside of her was hot and heated and pressuring and she knew even before she saw her that the redheaded nurse was here. First, she noticed Frida – as though to keep the best for last – her outline rigid and straight and even through the mist Delia could see sharp edges of the woman as she stood in front of her parked bicycle. Patsy, not as straight or as rigid waited the way she always did, right next to her. Unimposing yet with a presence felt several feet down the road. Her woollen cape fell around her nicely curved figure and Delia smiled, small and instinctual, as she came fully into view.

The waiting nurses seemed to be chatting about something and they turned to her when they heard the gravel crunching.

Patsy saw the Welsh nurse, abandoning her sentence to the blonde midway as though she had always intended to. She found her body suddenly cognizant, having caught an object to focus its energy on.

"Hello" she said.

Delia smiled, from under her lashes and coy the way she always did. Like they shared a secret in between them. Patsy felt herself weaken, in the knees and stomach.

"Good Morning Nurse Prendergast" Delia said, unable to mask the comparative edge in her tone.

"And to you Nurse Fraser."

The redhead was already wheeling out her bicycle, evidently run out of pleasantries. Delia didn't mind. She knew how much her friend valued professionalism, sometimes to a degree neurotic. Patsy could command her with cropped orders of "Nurse Fraser the gauze and Betadine please" one second, and then take her to coffee the next, laughing wholeheartedly and gossiping about her old Nurses' Home.

Delia supposed she could find it in herself to respect that sort of self-imposed strictness. She could not imagine the tables turned and herself not paying a little extra attention to Patsy.

Frida and Delia meanwhile, in spite of their steady competitive streaks in biking and bandaging, remained cordial. Not without a few jibes from Nurse Mount about consequences, but still, they had managed for a little more than four weeks now.

"We'll be starting at the Cavanaugh Old Age Home today – that's rather a distance from here, in Sutton Valence so be pr –"

"Sutton Valence? What?"

Patsy turned seated on her bicycle, "Is there a problem Nurse Prendergast?"

"N-no of course not, it's –" Frida looked in between the redhead and an amused Delia, "– don't mind. It's only that Sutton Valence is in Maidstone. The - the bleeding hinterland wilds middle-of-nowhere Maidstone. Two and half hours away, and that's on the number twelve. Pardon my language Nurse."

"I see you're familiar with it. If you'd allow me to continue I was just about to say we would be storing our bikes near the stop at the end of Whitechapel and taking –" she looked at the brunette for a moment, "– as Nurse Prendergast so astutely informed us, the number twelve from there."

"Right… well. That's –" Frida started to respond but the redhead faced forward, done with the conversation.

Delia blinked, making no sudden movements and happier than ever to not, as of yet, have gotten on Patsy's bad side. Then, out of habit, her brain severed from her mouth.

"Doesn't this place – Valence – "

" _Sutton_ Valence" Frida interjected, hopping atop her bike.

"Yes, _thank you_ Nurse Prendergast –" Delia snapped, and the redhead began tightening the straps of her cape, "– doesn't _Sutton_ Valence have nurses and doctors? Surely - surely if it's an Old Age Hospice Nurse Mount… one would think it would."

"It's a _home_ not a hospice Nurse Fraser" Patsy shot back, "– rather a difference. And shingles seem to be in fashion. Cavanaugh is a modest facility and not equipped for such an outbreak," she fastened her scarf, " – they needed assistance with debridement and pain management and Sister Julienne offered us up. Also I daresay the forecast looks like rain –" she glanced up to the thick sky, "– so let's prepare ourselves for a late night."

"How late?" Frida asked, and the Welsh woman winced in anticipation when Patsy pursed her lips in that way she did when Delia asked her too many questions about why she was quiet.

"It's – it's only that my mother-in-law gets in tonight at eight and I'm to be picking her up at the – at the station, is all. Only – only she's got arthritis in the hands and my Greg's off in Bromley on business."

Both women forgot to blink as Nurse Mount breathed out slowly. Frida strangled her handlebars. For the first time in several minutes, Patsy turned to her left, looking straight into Delia's eyes.

Delia could barely recognize the expression on her face. It looked to her, for the lack of a better term, like an abandoned puppy and she suddenly wished they were somewhere private off-duty so she could ask her what the matter was.

"And you Nurse Fraser? Do you have any prior engagements this evening?"

Delia only shook her head, wordlessly. _No_. As soon as the expression had come it was gone and so was Patsy and now she was Nurse Mount again.

"Very well –" Patsy clasped the handles, pushed off the ground for leverage and began bicycling; the two apprehensive women followed.

"I'm told the number four-inbound takes a longer route, but there is one at six thirty from Claxton near the Canterbury bridge –" Patsy said and Frida pedalled harder to catch all her words, "- rheumatoid arthritis can be ghastly during the winters."

The strawberry-blonde only nodded, murmuring a quick thank you and falling in pace with the erratic woman.

 _A wrecked boiler._ Delia thought again. Her eyes ran down the midwife's back and caught on her hips – the elegant sway of them; without notice, Patsy stood to swerve and the sky-blue of her uniform stretched and tightened against her thighs. Delia looked away, feeling warm and self-conscious.

* * *

Delia had not perspired since she arrived in London six and a half weeks ago. The _Cavanaugh Old-Age Home_ changed all that.

The institution – a self-sufficient, austere, Gothic edifice built of stone, clay and lime mortar – looked deceptively massive in stature from the outside. That mirage was quickly clarified upon visitation however. With heavy-set, low hanging ceilings and small casement-hopper styled windows that only tilted open a few centimetres, most patient wards – or 'gathering halls' as they rather misleadingly called them, remained unventilated and sultry. Two tall bay windows brought in generous amounts of scenery in the corridors but remained fixed. Holes-in-the-wall for hungry, dimming visions; enough to tease a planet of tall strips of yellow Aspen and acres of Elderberry bushes, of vast, lush fields untamed with red fescue – an emerald green sea rippling this way and that cutting through ribbons of wind. One could smell it almost, the Kentish Weald slithering below – several feet under the peak the organisation was situated on – as though purposefully, to remind its residents of what was so near. A village of people and homes and vibrant country roads pulsating with bakeries and haberdasheries. To remind its residents of what was so near, but could not be accessed. Not through those holes in walls so high up in the sky. Every hour, a low rich bell reverberated – around the Elderberry and the Weald and Kent and those trees of Aspen watching quietly, a reminder of time. Of time moving, everywhere except inside of _Cavanaugh Old-Age Home._

As Delia rolled an old woman across the East wing in her wheel-chair; the pair seeing the scene pass like an oil on canvas by some obscure painter. The woman, a Rose Jenkins, her wristband said, placed a hand on the nurse's and she slowed down. Both of them stood next to glass, watching the overcast, sinking sky. And Delia thought that if she kept looking, she might forget if it was the ocean or the clouds – they moved so angrily with the wind. She felt small suddenly, depressed by the beauty of it all.

It had been close to six hours since the three nurses had reached the facility and none of them had spoken beyond the limits of medicine. Asking the other to help tilt a patient on their side, or to fetch a bedpan, some gauze, a stethoscope. Or, in two instances, to fetch a doctor to declare time of death.

When the woman of 97 dozed off, Delia brought her back to the general ward. Six ceiling-fans tremored as they spun at full speed. It smelled of chemicals. _Antiseptic_. Not unlike a hospital, the Welsh nurse thought, but with a shade of something more unpleasant. Perhaps they used a different sort of disinfectant here. Or it was the damp. The sort that had settled in the cracks of the walls and the peeling paint and the loose floorboards over centuries; the smell of old, interminable sanitation.

Shingles were the very least of these patients' problems, she decided.

Close to 11 residents were packed in each room, their cots, creaky and close-set. Most, if not all, were suffering from some or the other form of dementia. Those better off listened to the wireless in a small foyer in the lobby, and a few women even seemed to have taken up needlepoint. But nobody spoke. Seeming to have forgotten language. Forgotten their names, their lives, their loves.

Quite right too, Delia thought as she dabbed a particularly ripe welt under an aged man's knee with Hydrogen Peroxide. For if the world and everything in it seemed to have forgotten them, then what was the meaning in remembering _it_?

Frida held a wrist in between two fingers and a thumb, her attention focused on the small watch hanging out of her breast-pocket. Even from across the hall, the brunette could see the fabric of her uniform darkened under her arms. For how frigid their morning had been, it was uncannily hot here. Humid and sweaty like forces of temperature fighting in between tectonic plates. Ready to break, to break through.

She soaked another ball of cotton in antiseptic and rubbed into the abscess of wrinkled skin. This time, he moaned. Through stale phlegm and from inside his chest. Delia almost dropped the pincers and the cotton, startled. If it had been a child, she would have declared it the moan a child moans when it wants its mother.

"Almost finished" she whispered to him, swallowing through a sudden blockage in her throat. When she looked up, Patsy was watching her – a clipboard held in her hands as though she was scribbling something on it but had forgotten. A surprisingly distressed expression laced her face. Surprising, because nothing distressed the formidable Nurse Mount.

Patsy smiled then, only slight and very sadly. A perfect smile, Delia decided, for the hopelessness of this land. She responded. She didn't know how but she did because Patsy seemed to understand what she was saying – _This is important work._

The two women went back to what they were doing. Patsy scribbling, taking down vital signs of a man with wires in his wrists and a mustard jumper on.

A total of four nurses ran the facility, with the help of two rotating doctors. Delia understood now, why a bout of shingles might require a few extra pairs of hands. She had met Sister Julienne only once, but from stories Patsy told, she seemed like a wise woman who knew everything about the universe. She wondered then, if she knew how these people lived. Not in filth per se. But stuck in time.

If she knew, why didn't she do something about it?

Could she do anything?

Could _anyone_ …?

Delia, caught in rapid thought of exhaustion stepped back into a stand which held a bowl of water and saline. It clashed to the floor and made a loud sound of water and metal.

A few patients bristled, eyeing her or simply gurgling. Patsy only glanced at her but didn't move, bent over a red rash on a woman's back. She looked pale, the brunette thought. When she bent down to clean up the mess, Frida walked over and began collecting the fluid with a washcloth. The two women shared their first eye-contact of the day. A gesture that meant they would be civil today. Just today. Because today was bigger than them.

Delia, in spite of her problems with the blonde, appreciated that about her. She was reliable in a hospital room. She left their personal drama at the door and was as much a nurse as any nurse. She had been that way with Raymond Armen. The little boy with whooping cough. And she was the same here.

Once this storey was finished, she moved to the upper level. It consisted of the same architecture. The same sickly smell and the same quiet. The same echoes of coughing and periodic whimpers.

The next time Delia walked through a corridor she noticed the sun was nowhere to be found. The sky, now more congested, three layers thicker than before with only hair-like fissures of bright orange slashing through, was signalling a time that she did not usually work at. She glanced at her watch.

A quarter to seven.

Frida must have left already, she thought. They still had two more floors to go through. The remaining rooms held fewer patients, several of whom were stable in comas, but it would still be a decent amount of time before she got home.

"Nurse?"

Delia turned to the voice. A diminutive woman, of somewhere in her forties was standing with a pile of towels to her chin. She was in uniform, but not a nurse's uniform. The Welsh nurse couldn't remember if she replied or not. She didn't want to say 'yes' twice. Not to be thought of as daft. But not saying anything would be rude as well, she decided. So she raised her eyebrows, politely.

"Tis' been a great help. Your lot coming 'ere. Helping out. We appreciate it. If your family's on the telephone and you want to let 'em know you're alright? The posh redhead downstairs – she says the pair 'o you's to go back to Poplar. Your families should be worried, I imagine. Sister Greyhen says you're welcome to use the telephone in her office" she said, shuffling awkwardly on her feet.

"That's very kind of her."

A quick call to Hugh letting him know she would be late actually made her feel better. She added that she wouldn't have access to a telephone after this but that she was with Patsy and so he needn't worry. She felt looser. Suddenly without a curfew, like she was not accountable to anybody for the day.

By the time they finished with the last patient – a 79-year-old woman with Alzheimer's named Sally-Ann whose smile Delia would never forget for as long as she lived – it was a nearing 9 p.m.

All they had to do now was wait on some paperwork and they could head back. Delia decided to go find the redhead, who she hadn't seen for at least a half hour now. There were no signs of Patsy on any of the wards, the bathrooms or even the supply-closets. She checked the pantry. Nothing.

As she made her way out of the web of the Victorian construction, she registered for the first time the bitter sticky consistency of her mouth. They had worked through lunch break and had sustained themselves only on two arrowroot biscuits apiece and several cups of strong Turkish coffee. The blend was apparently a favourite of the Matron at _Cavanaugh._ The brunette nurse did not share her affinity for the pungent lukewarm swill she was certain had burnt through the lining of her stomach.

Delia couldn't distinguish the remnants in her mouth from coffee and bile. Both which were equally likely. She pulled at the material of her dress, realizing it was sticking to her skin.

Patsy was leaning against the main gate of the facility. A comparatively small, grating contraption. Delia saw her royal-blue form cutting through the black fields of grass across the byway from a distance away. She was slouched, a leg folded at the knee with her foot pressed on the brick wall behind. An arm was crossed across her belly and a cigarette glowed auburn over a lifeless wrist.

Flints of fire and some ash she could not see crumbled off the smouldering butt, coasted across the cliff and over the village below with a steamy gust of ocean air.

Delia would have worried. Thought the woman was sick or nauseous from her grasp against her abdomen if only she hadn't seen her this way many times before.

"There are studies now you know? Always in the Lancet. About the effects of cigarettes on pulmonary function."

Patsy turned to her, actually alarmed by the interruption. Delia was walking toward her, arms hugging her own body. The redhead recovered quickly, letting the fag fall. With the tip of a shoe, she squashed it dead into the ground.

"What cigarette?"

Delia rolled her eyes, pretending not to be amused by her antics.

"Done with ward four?"

"Signed, sealed and delivered –" the brunette said, "– I've left the envelope on Matron Greyhen's table."

"You look tired" Patsy said, rubbing her palms into each other.

"Flatterer" Delia smirked, sitting on a broken stone bench near the gate. The redhead sauntered around, fingers grazing a hedgerow of coarse dark leaves before settling next to the Welsh nurse. Delia smiled at her, soft and in a way that encapsulated their entire day.

She touched Patsy's hand and it took the taller nurse a moment before registering it. But when she did, the brunette knew because she felt her stiffen. Blue, resigned eyes looked into Delia's. Her hair, chestnut and burning was tousled only slightly. A few strands sticking to her forehead.

With the pad of a thumb, Delia brushed the spot on her hand; she felt the veins and the distance in between thin pronounced bone there, "Are you alright?"

The words seemed to dislodge something in the woman because she shook her head. Sucking in the right corner of her mouth. Delia heard her when she swallowed and looked away. She bent closer, "What is it?"

Patsy withdrew her hand gently from under the brunette's, clasping her own. Threading long fingers through each other.

"This place. It –" she stopped, shaking the thought away and pinching the bridge of her nose. Delia spread a hand on her knee, bowing her head to look at her friend. She edged closer.

"Sister Monica Joan, she says these lines by John Keats, she says –" Patsy swallowed, turning to look at the attentive woman beside her. Her words were clipped, her accent pronounced when she said them,

"Touch has a memory. O say, love, say, what can I do to kill it and be free."

For the first time in all of their acquaintance, Delia noticed a sheen of water painted over the redhead's eyes. She was amazed at the transformation. Patsy could be so many things. She could be daunting, a force to be reckoned with. She could be absolutely maddening. Selfish with her emotions. She could be so very capable. So sweet. She could be hurtful and hurt and she could be funny and talkative and entirely reticent. A person would never be bored with Patsy, she thought.

"What do you want to be free of?"

Patsy looked as if she had never been asked that before. Her voice was hoarse.

"Today reminded me of a time from my past. I'd very much like to be free of it."

"Of your past?"

The redhead nodded, a half-smile on her face. Like a small girl wanting for ice-cream, and like a woman in terrible despair. They sat that way until something grumbled. Then louder and both women looked up. It was the sky and it was flashing with light.

"God –" Patsy clasped the smaller woman's wrist and pulled her up, "We need to hurry if we want to make it back tonight."

"That was the sky?"

The redhead looked at Delia, head tilted in amused annoyance at the silly question.

"I thought it was Matron" she said, a smirk sliding over dark pink lips. Patsy threw her head back, laughing and Delia joined in. Delighted to hear the full-bodied sound.

A drizzle began on cue and the sky flashed brighter and the thunder roared louder and Patsy pulled the brunette behind her as they ran into the stark building now alight with lamps.

* * *

 **A.N.:** Hope that was a good read. Thank you for your kind words on the previous chapter. They were so helpful. Really, thank you for sticking by this story.

I'm thoroughly excited about writing the next chapter. And that's all I have to say about that.


	10. Chapter 10

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own _Call the Midwife_ , or any of the characters mentioned. All rights belong to BBC One, PBS, Heidi Thomas and Jennifer Worth. I do not own rights to ' _Poetry in Motion_ ' or any such published works of music, art and film mentioned in the story.

 **For entertainment purposes only.**

* * *

Chapter 10

It was all so shocking and wet and cold and grassy and muddy and black and not black enough, Patsy had absolutely, totally, quite literally, run out of patience. A choice of noun ironic in its being in relation to the woman, but nonpareil nonetheless. She was stalking now, in her nurse's clogs made not for such activity, as water indecisive in its temperature inched up to her ankles on some carrot-coloured dirt road with no end in sight. The harder she stomped and the greater the height from which her feet dove into the puddle and sunk into silt the farther up it sloshed, the angrier she got. The more she muttered; louder, crosser, faster.

Then as though the whims of the atmosphere were in some way inexplicably entwined with her mood – like a persistent, passionate lover – the hotter her head got, the wilder came the wind, disgustingly humid carrying the smell of delicious country-soil and heady fertilizer, rustling with it the tall trees and the shrubbery and the hefty blades of Common Reed that flanked the redhead's unlit path on both sides; rustling with it, the redhead herself, as she gritted her jaw and yanked her sodden cape tighter.

In turn, the wind did what one does when they are entwined with the whims of another and screamed and brought down with it buckets of iced water like panes of glass falling from a tall tenement tower.

Delia watched on from several feet behind, purposefully maintaining a safe distance as she carried their medical bags. Masterfully, even in the lack of light under the dark pink sky of South East England, she navigated around especially deep pools of rain, small feet finding land by default as though from years of practice.

A pair of dark eyebrows rose as Patsy faltered. She set out her hands but didn't quite complete the descent, standing back up and forging on as though nothing had happened. She stopped quite unexpectedly then. Ripped off her sopping scarf and stuffed it into a pocket. Then looked back, and Delia almost flinched at the expression.

"Any slower and I'll have to collect my retirement stipend by the time I reach Nonnatus" she said.

Delia bit down on the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. She nodded and the redhead resumed her mad tread once more. Like a dog with an Elizabethan collar on. Patsy's uniform-cape, now dampened a good few hues from its original grey camouflaged quite nicely into the night, the brunette thought. So it looked, from her angle, like a body-less pair of pale legs blading in and out of a makeshift rivulet. There was of course her hair, more a jam-red now, that she could see – and in between the curtain of that hair falling out of a beehive and a wilting neckline, white patches of her skin glowed through. Of course, Delia did not need her sight to know where the tall midwife was. The woman plodded rather loudly and cursed even louder– cursed the bus they missed, cursed Sutton Valence, cursed the bus conductor, cursed the Matron at Cavanaugh _and_ for some reason Delia didn't quite feel like inquiring about, cursed the Matron at the London as they journeyed down a track adjoining Kent and Poplar.

"Hurry would you?" Patsy yelled back, more a whine this time – her full voice having no problems battling the whistle of the East gale.

Delia rolled her eyes as she held her coat up and navigated around an especially dilapidated patch of loam. She hauled the overfed medical-bags behind her, "Just strapping my skates on Pats!"

They went on this way for at least another half hour before the Welsh woman decided it was time to put an end to this madness. By her estimation, it was edging close to 11 p.m. now and in spite of Patsy's protestations about her knowing her way, Delia was beginning to suspect, as they crawled farther and farther on this seemingly interminable little zigzagged path, that Patsy might have been exaggerating her sense of terrestrial direction. In fact, judging by how upset the woman had gotten as soon as the very first drops had begun to fall on her hair, the brunette rather suspected Patsy was somewhat of a city-girl.

Delia had to call her three times and then finally toss a soft clump of grass at her before she achieved the redhead's attention.

She dropped the bags and folded her arms across her chest. Standing in that position until an arrogant Patsy Mount finally resigned and splashed her way toward the smaller woman. The brunette struggled to maintain her stern demeanour when she came close enough to properly see in the shadows. Delia rather thought she looked endearing, with her hair in absolute disarray so it looked like flames in a kerosene fire, drenched and pouting with her mascara runny as she stood there in posture perfect like a know-it-all little schoolgirl.

"What is it now?" Patsy said, hands on her waist, "Delia please do appreciate that we would have reached Poplar and been in our warm beds by now if you had gotten a move on."

Delia blinked. Noticing the rain had slowed down. Whatever moment of fondness she felt went away quickly.

"Pats. If you had actuallyhelped carry some of these things instead of stomping about like a spoilt child then perhaps I would've had the opportunity to get a move on –" Delia gestured to the bags half drowned in water, " – not to mention its –"

"I beg your pardon" Patsy gasped enough for the both of them, "Did you just referto me as a 'spoilt child'?"

"Quite right too" Delia said, rolling down her dripping sleeves.

"Oh really? Do tell. What is it exactly that makes me a 'spoilt child'? Is it the fact that I'm supervising nurse or that I've been our guide –"

"Guide into oblivion's more like it" Delia interjected, folding her arms angrily.

"Spatial-awareness humour," Patsy said, matching the brunette's move with a defensive stance "How fitting coming from a 22-year-old girl who can't ride a bicycle to save her life."

Delia felt her teeth gritting as she took in the insufferable woman standing before her just incapable of admitting her mistake. Her logical mind knew they were both dog-tired and beyond the point of famish crossing into nausea crossing into lightheaded vexation and so she should nip this in the bud – but now was no time for logic.

"Patsy you did nearly begin weeping when your hair started falling out of those damned Kirby grips. Which in itself is a baffling phenomenon what with the jars of lacquer in there one wouldn't think the Dogger Bank Earthquake wouldn't so much as nudge it" Delia said in one breath, her Welsh lilt lathering her tongue with an accent, "So _spoilt_ is not a very wrong term to use."

"I'll say, you've got quite the sharp tongue for someone who came to the pictures in a Bentley motorcar" Patsy said, grazing what was left of her beehive subtly with the back of her hand.

Delia exhaled slowly. Biting her tongue to hold back whatever was going to come out. This was the first Patsy had mentioned their awkward run-in at the Victoria last night and obviously she hadn't been wrong in suspecting the redhead's behaviour had been odd. Even for her.

She felt acid in her stomach. Swilling around like the colloidal puddle of freshwater they were logged in and she couldn't ascertain just then if she was just that angry or that hungry. Probably both, she concluded.

She took in Patsy, her shoulders squared and cheeks ruddy with winter and emotion. The fool would walk them to death if she let her. She turned to her side, focusing her thoughts on why she had stopped in the first place. She breathed out again, ragged and slow through her mouth. Patsy, eventually followed her gaze.

Amongst the soaring, unkempt clearing of reed – blades shaving and duelling under the confused wind – far off in the distance, there was a light. Pale yellow. It flickered, rays detouring through mist.

"Delia?"

Delia turned back to look at the frowning redhead. Now curious in the silence.

"We're going there."

"Going where?"

"There, see?" Delia said, voice strong as she looked back to the spot.

"What? Why?" the midwife stepped closer into her space; slushy water rippled as she moved and both women cringed at the feeling. They looked down and then back to each other.

"If I'm correct that's a public house over there. Or a house at the least. Right or wrong we are going to go somewhere warm and dry. We are going to get some food and then we'll sort out a plan from there" Delia said, calmly.

"But we already have plan," Patsy disputed, now with less vigour that before; she signalled to their everlasting path, "We head West toward Claxton. Nurse Prendergast left this way and got home just fine."

"Patsy… Nurse Prendergast left in the light of day with no howling coyotes or storms and with the sense of direction of a Naval sergeant."

A flicker of mischief glinted about in blue eyes. Looking naughtier than Delia had ever seen. Patsy tucked back some hair and bowed imperceptibly closer down to the brunette, "You'd slander my directional reputation so far as to complimenting Frida?"

With all her will, Delia restrained an upturn of the mouth. She cleared her throat, maintaining steady eye-contact.

"Patsy you've got no directional reputation. And I won't argue with you any longer. I'm famished."

With that, she whirled around and began her journey toward the pale glimmer adjacent to the redhead's track of choice.

"Delia"

With her forearm, the brunette brushed to the side the swaying strands of grass and disappeared into the field.

"Delia?" Patsy called, bewildered by the woman's lack of compunction in strolling quite literally into the woods, "Delia stop right this instance!"

Nothing. She saw nothing. Something rustled in the distance. She tightened her cape, threw a cursory glance around, picked up the bags and ran as best she could into the patch of Common Reed her gallingly intrepid colleague had disappeared into.

"My good giddy aunt…" she growled when the short woman looked back at her, giggling with a hand on her stomach.

"So you are coming then?" the brunette focused straight ahead, leading them now.

"Only to keep an eye on you," Patsy said; blowing hair out from over her eyes, "Wouldn't want you eaten by coyotes or black bears or the like."

"We're not in Canada Pats" Delia said, lightly amused, "There are no bears in England… I'm beginning to think Mr. Mount never took you camping."

The midwife felt her shoulders tighten; she focused on the haziest of trails, nearly cloaked without the sun with vines and undergrowth of purslane. "One would think it's the sentiment that counts" she said breezily.

Delia chuckled, reaching back without looking to touch Patsy's sleeve. "Oh Pats…" she pushed away more pastureland, dodging expertly through it, "My knight in shining armour. _Sopping_ armour."

"Don't flatter yourself old thing. I'm accountable for your whereabouts, remember? What would I tell Sister Julienne if I lost you?"

"Don't know, you tell me."

"Gosh these bags are like dead bodies" Patsy panted, dragging the luggage as she moved through thickets much less elegantly than her cheeky companion.

"Oh I had not the faintest idea" the brunette tossed a glance over her shoulder.

She grabbed a bag when Patsy pouted again because the expression made her soften. They continued the rest of the way in silence born of natural languor.

In time, the much-discussed source of light became a lantern and soon began to materialize into a smoking chimney.

* * *

Both hands wrapped around a stout, warm glass like it was a lifeline, the redheaded nurse watched vigilantly her dinner compatriot as she took a sip.

"Well?"

Delia let the liquid swoosh around in her mouth, singeing her gums and splashing over the grooves of her teeth. She swallowed, wincing only slightly as the dry liquor gushed down her oesophagus and sat in her belly, a searing rod of iron.

"No" she swirled her glass.

"What do you mean 'no'?"

Delia took another sip, bringing it down easier this time. She shrugged offhandedly, putting the tumbler down.

"You're joking" the midwife exclaimed in disbelief.

The smaller nurse leaned forward, and Patsy's eyes shot around the dingy tavern. The rather corpulent gentleman, the only other gentleman in the establishment, sat as he had been sitting for the last hour. Collected like a sack of potatoes on a chair behind the bar snoozing on and off.

So Patsy felt braver, no eyes on her. So Patsy felt braver, with fermented rye heating her blood.

" _Patsy…_ " Delia whispered conspiratorially, earning her focus immediately "Not only does this not hold a _candle_ to Penderyn back home, but it tastes like paint solvent."

The redhead opened her mouth in embellished shock, producing an impish grin from the Welsh woman. She proceeded to sip the lukewarm drink, watching from behind the rim as the hanging lamp above played over the angles of Patsy's face.

In one motion, much slower than it felt, the woman under her attention pushed forward on the table. She slid their empty plates to the side, extended an arm and wrapped long fingers around the small hand that grasped the ballooned-votive. If she heard the snatch in Delia's breath at the contact, she didn't show it.

Like ointment on a knot, the redhead loosed the grasp and retrieved the scotch from her hold.

"Convalmore is top notch. You're underserving," Patsy said evenly; she sat. She sipped from the stolen glass and Delia felt a strange dissonance in her pulse as she watched Patsy's mouth touching where hers had been only a second ago. Before she knew what she was doing, she reached and snatched the drink back.

She took a swig, "And who went and made you judge and jury Pats?"

A manicured eyebrow arched, and Patsy smiled from one side of her mouth.

"My father"

"Oh?" the brunette said, adjusting her position on the bench, "Do go on."

"Let's just say he was rather fastidious about foam –" she cleared her throat in preparation, polishing off her glass and straightening up, "– 'Bloody botheration. If it makes a moustache, it's no more than milk, love' he used to say. I was _eight_ when he deemed it inexcusable for his ale to be any part aerated."

"I'd like to have met little Patience Mount. A master-pouring genius –" Delia said from under her lashes.

"Genius indeed –" the redhead pulled a cigarette from her purse, "– I was the one to beat when it came to the tending of beer…"

Delia laughed softly, entirely rapt by the rare insight into the redhead's life. It was the very first time she had talked about her parents. She wondered why, suddenly. Then, through a hazy recollection from a few hours ago, she recalled Patsy sad.

It wasn't that she had forgotten their conversation on the bench at Cavanaugh, but this is what was inclined to happen with Patsy. She said these private things that if prodded into, entirely shut her off. So the Welsh woman had gotten used to conversation that was tangential at best, when it came to Patsy's emotions. Patsy's past.

There were times all Delia could think about was wanting to know more about her _supervising_ nurse. Like a ravenous creature desiring to claw through tiers of mud and gravel and stone and touch – _touch_ , touch and feel with her fingers wholeheartedly until she felt nothing else except what was inside. But Patsy was not mud and gravel and stone she was all that and more and an utter sight for sore eyes.

She wanted to know why Patsy was so sad sometimes. So ecstatic other times. She wanted to know so much and more and more and more.

Patsy wanting to not remember something. Patsy reciting Keats. Patsy in tears. Patsy laughing. Patsy stomping. _Patsy_ , _Patsy,_ _Patsy_ … It was utterly exhausting. Thinking about her. Not thinking about her.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

Delia felt hot suddenly. Nauseous. She finished her drink in an attempt to stall but regretted it instantly when her head felt heavy.

"Deels?"

The Welsh woman shook out of the reverie, gathering her composure and focusing back on the woman seated across from her. The tables were too wide apart she thought. She wrapped her arms around herself.

"Are you alright?" she asked, stopping midway; a slim smoke in between her fingers.

Delia nodded, tilting her head languidly. "Sorry. Must be all the paint solvent…" she regarded her empty glass.

The faint crease in between round indigo eyes smoothed away and came a small smirk, "You had no trouble finishing it?"

As though latched on to them, Delia watched plump lips – lipstick washed off – curling around the white cigarette. The way it glowed awake and the way Patsy's cheeks hollowed when she took the first drag. Her features loosened visibly, the spicy tobacco doing its trick.

"On balance, it does sort of grow on you. It's fresh at the end. Like pineapple."

Patsy blew out a mouthful of smoke in a wiry thread, allusive gaze trained on the brunette "Most welcome over to the dark side."

The Welsh woman rested back; the hard wood of the bench prodded into her shoulder-blades. She willed the tempo of her heart to even out. They sat in silence. Patsy smoked her second Dunhill, seeming to have entered one of her trances. Every once in a while she tapped the burning end into a rusty ashtray.

Delia brought them back another peg, hoping to dissolve whatever peculiar place her mind seemed to have settled in.

A gin this time, which the redhead pretended to wrinkle her nose at but drank anyway.

Delia allowed her attention to wander, a viscous gulp of Hendricks held in her mouth. She hadn't had this much to drink in years. Suppose she had. She drank when Hugh wanted to kiss, or do more, it was so much easier that way – she swallowed hard. Closed her eyes. Not wanting to think of Hugh or kissing him just now.

Whatever this was, this feeling she was feeling, though unnerving, felt so much more… exciting.

In an attempt to distract herself, she examined the inside of the shambled public house, not even registering the musty waft of wet fabric she had recoiled at when they first entered. _Whitby's Basin_ the flickering sign outside had read.

Unfocused eyes travelled around the dusty tables – their surfaces reflecting the lanterns above dimly so it looked like pools of black water. They travelled through booths. She blinked, realizing how heavy her eyelids felt. It was perhaps the enervation from their surreal day, or the fact that all she had in ways of food was a haddock and some stale chips.

But she felt the consequences of alcohol, in her neck and her toes, much faster than she had since she was a teenager. Not the way brandy felt in bed with her husband – a sedative, a magic potion allowing her to leave her body – she closed her eyes again.

Pinched the bridge of her nose.

She opened them. Blinking to focus. Opened them to the image of a certain redhead. The second to top button of her uniform strained as she propped her head back on her seat. Tobacco smouldered in the ashtray in between them as a crooked butt lay spent. Patsy's eyes were closed. A fact the brunette was glad for. She could look at her properly.

Her hair, once dripping, was now curling at the bottom. Of ripe strawberry. Unfastened and falling down strong shoulders.

When they knocked on the door of _Whitby's Basin_ , the man at the counter had said they were closing and wouldn't serve anymore. Patsy had pleaded in a very Patsy-way which was more a command and when that didn't work she had stood very straight and said in a clipped sort of a voice, "I'm surprised with you Sir. Closing your doors to assiduous nurses of Nonnatus House?"

Delia was quickly learning 'Nonnatus' was a key to many circles in East London. Outside of London, too. Because whether out of fear or shame, he had been utterly generous to them. Told them about the bus schedule – Delia looked at her watch, they had another half hour – and invited them to stay as long as needed.

Patsy had tipped him heavily. Patsy had this effortless charisma about her. You couldn't say no.

Delia watched the shape of her throat. Slender. Glowing. Leading to the opening of her uniform. That straining button. She swallowed.

Her heart jump-started so abruptly it hurt. Slammed. Thrashed. With full force against her ribs. In her stomach.

She got up fast. Too fast. She felt unsteady on her feet and when she clasped the edge of the bench for support drowsy blue eyes fluttered open. Patsy looked panicked, attention snapping to her own watch.

"It's alright. We've got 25 minutes or so…"

Patsy licked her lips. Chapped. She swallowed. Nodding.

"Is everything ok?"

Delia watched her, wishing she hadn't drunk that last bit. Or glad she had. She began gathering her things.

"Delia?" Patsy started to get up.

"I – I uh – I want to – it's a bit stuffy in here –" she looked around, her mouth dry. She wanted to go home suddenly. And stay, too.

"Gosh, yes. You could drown a fish in here," the redhead complied without a question. Within moments the midwife brought them water. Delia drained the cool glass in a sip, it helped with the heat under her clammy uniform.

They waved goodbye to the man and Patsy gave him some more money. When Delia objected, she simply said it was a return for all the lollies and candies she always brought her. She was too tired to argue.

Both nurses flinched at the sudden change in temperature as they stepped out of the small pub.

" _Bloody_ hell" Patsy barked, buttoning her already wet cape. The brunette only glanced at her, silently glad for the cold. The fresh air, biting as it was. She wrapped her fingers tightly around the handle of a medical-bag and the redhead held the other bag.

They began walking, well-oiled and washed with the pink sky of Southeast England. Their designated stop was only a block away but both checked the time much too often, aware that this was the last bus of the night. Patsy ran a hand through her hair, reminding herself to pin it up before she reached Nonnatus.

The rest of the journey felt like some sort of a dream. Pensive and hushed, with just the two of them and an old woman on the number twelve.

Delia warily turned to look to her side. Patsy's profile cut nicely into the scenery passing by the window. She blinked, more at ease now that her body didn't seem to be so on overdrive anymore. So buzzed.

She was relieved also because this meant it was temporary, whatever that beating of her chest might have signified. She recalled the last time she felt something similar. In a motorcar driving from Wrexham to Pembrokeshire with Derec Cardiff's sister when she was 17 years old. But it had not been this strong. This all-encompassing. And alas the car-ride had ended and she had thought of it only on some nights.

She had to see Patsy more often than that. _Wanted_ to see Patsy more often than a spin in a motorcar.

She was tired. That was all. It was over now. Her pulse was normal and so was her head and she had just had too much to drink.

Once again, her focus dragged to the redhead. This time, she turned to look back at her. Naked, Patsy's eyes, and tranquil, were watching her. The blue in them seemed sprightly somehow. Like the seas and the skies and the pretty dresses in the stores of the city. Signifying all that Delia loved about London. About Pembrokeshire.

The edge of her mouth tugged up slowly, sliding into an askew smile so characteristic of Patsy Mount, the Welsh woman thought she could recognize it from a mile away. She placed a hand on the redhead's knee and the smile stopped where it was. The tip of an index finger drew a pattern there and then went on up along her thigh to find her hand. She laced her fingers through it.

"I would never pressure you to tell me about your past –" she stopped when she felt her hand go rigid, much like it had at Cavanaugh, "– and you can tell me or not tell me whenever you want. Pats, look at me…"

The redhead looked around the bus briefly, then complied with her friend's request. Delia was watching her with such care she thought she would start weeping.

"I have never met anybody so interesting to talk to. Or so kind, as you, Patience," she said softly, kneeling to maintain eye-contact "And you are this way _because_ of your past. No matter how ghastly. So don't tell me. But be proud. Because you really are quite lovely."

Delia squeezed her hand before letting it go. She noticed her own palm was clammy when she brought it back. That sheen from before was back on the redhead's eyes and Delia briefly wondered if she should have said all these things. If they were too familiar.

Two fingers inched up to the smaller wrist. Patsy pulled her hand close and held it to her abdomen, just under her chest.

Delia's stomach constricted so hard she grinded teeth.

"Thank you…" Patsy said, unaware of the effect. She bent closer, eyes dipping to her mouth "You're not so bad yourself, Delia Busby."

* * *

 **A.N.:** I will again thank you all for such an overwhelming, lovely response. I like to hear both, your criticism and your praise because I find I learn so much from it. I am thoroughly enjoying writing this story and am so pleased to have so many of you on board with me.

I'm aware this chapter was more in the realm of filler/fluff but I deem those important too, as they go a long way in showing the way the characters play off of each other, their chemistry and such.

Nonetheless, I hope you enjoyed it. Thoughts?


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